...often copied, never duplicated

Setting Drink Prices

They all catch on sooner or later. You know, a new place, and different ways of doing things. It comes with the turf.

You know, this confusion can stop. Really, the fault belongs to the night club management, or the night club owner. Although they won't admit it.

Every bar or club owner generally have some kind of information behind the bar to reflect on. You know what I mean. Some night clubs will have sheets to refer to, and some will have a roledex. Some will have information in a book or binder, and some will have it on a computer.

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It's easy to remember the prices of liquors that you pour all the time. But the ones you don't pour that often seems to evade you. That makes commom sense.

Then, you ask another bartender and hope they remember. If your busy, which I hope you are, who has the time to look it up. And what happens is what most bartenders do, they wing it. That's right, just wing it. They will just guess. It doesn't happen that often, but it happens. If you have POS System, and it is updated, the correct price will come up. BUT........

I wouldn't put a POS System in a bar or nightclub to save my life. Tell the bean counters to get lost! If you know what you are doing, you already know how much your liquor costs are, and what you are selling.

POS Systems are to cumbersome. It takes forever to ring up a drink. There is really no flexability, and when they get a glitch, everything stops! To correct a mistake you might of made while bartending, you have to call a manager, they have to put in their code or use their swipe card to correct the problem. And, if they are in the bathroom or something, the customer just waits!

You can't give me one! They are good for many businesses, but not the bar business. And you'll save about 20k!

Now this isn't all the bartenders fault as I said earlier. Some night club managers set drink prices that have NASA confused. Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason for the method behind their madness. But if you tell them that, they usually will begin to tell you that YOU don't know what your talking about.

Many times, a night club manager or night club owner don't know. Many times, they will just copy the going rate or match their competition when setting drink prices. WrongI know what's going through your mind right now. You are asking yourself, "isn't there a standard that is the right way?" Well yes. The standard is to figure out what percentage of liquor cost you want and price everything accordingly.

I know, I know, you want to know what the percentage is. Well, this industry really has no set standard. Most night club owners will work on a twenty five percent liquor cost. Although many will work on a twenty percent liquor cost. And that can vary anywhere in between.

So you would need to charge your customer two dollars and eighty cents for that drink for you to have a twenty five percent liquor cost. For that same drink, if you wanted to work on a twenty percent liquor cost, you would need to charge your customer three dollars and fifty cents.

So as you can see, the first thing you need to do is figure out what liquor cost you want to work on when setting drink prices. Got that? Ok.

The next thing you want to do is tackle the coinage issue. There is no rhyme or reason to be dealing with misc. coinage when setting drink prices. The only coinage you shouls be dealing with is quarters. Period! Why you ask. It's simple, it's easier, faster, and less chage to buy and count. Makes common sense to me.

In all the years I have spent in this industry, I only used quarters. In some States, there is tax on liquor. And the problem is................? You just charge the customer the price in a quarter increment, that includes tax.

Here's an example. Let's say you live in a State that has a six percent tax rate. You have figured out what you liquor cost is, so you chage someone two dollars and eighty three cents for the drink, plus tax, comes to three dollars. You just work with dollars and quarters.

This really is a no brainer!

Many people are comfortable doing this in a bar and night club setting. Some are uncomfortable with this type of drink prices in a restaurant setting. You choose. But for a bar or night club, there is nothing to think about, hands down. What I have just explained is average liquor cost. You see, what you want to do is figure out what the liquor cost as a whole is. Not per liquor. What I mean by this is this. Let's say you want to work on a twenty five percent liquor cost, ok. Some liquors you may have a twenty two percent liquor cost and come liquors you may have a twenty eight percent liquor cost. It should average out to a twenty five percent liquor cost.

The reason for the flexability in pricing is two fold. First is coinage, second is ease of setting drink prices.


What I mean by this, is this. You can't charge your customers your percentage of profit per different liquor. There are so many bottles that you would be charging a different price for every bottle! Who in the hell could remember that. And yes, a POS system can do this, but this is much easier when setting drink prices. Besides,it's just plain stupid!

Here's what to do. And you need to figure out the span of costs to make yourself feel comfortable when setting these prices. Let's say the liquor that costs you zero to ten dollars, you would charge for example two dollars and fifty cents. Then, from ten dollars a bottle to thirteen dollars a bottle, you charge three dollars per drink. Then again, from thirteen dollars a bottle to sixteen dollars a bottle, you would charge three dollars and fifty cents. And so on. Get it?

You need to initially figure out the cost of your liquor and put them in the correct catagories, figure out what you are going to have for a liquor cost, and set the incrimental prices.

The best part of setting drink prices like this is now. Now it will be easy to remember prices because for every pricing range, you put on a colored pourer!! For example, for your first price range, let's say it's two dollars and fifty cents, you put on a red pourer on those bottles. Then, for the next price range, you put on a blue pourer. And so on.

Now when you hire a bartender, and they pick up any bottle that has a red pourer on it, they automatically know it's price! They just need to remember about five colors!!

Setting drink prices is a pain at first. After you know what your doing, it's so easy that anyone can do it.

And if you plan to attend a bartending school, setting drink prices will be covered in the course.