Chris Schneider (00:01.016)
Today on the Bar Business Podcast, discover smart strategies to maintain revenue during quiet shifts. Learn how to turn slow periods into profit opportunities and master quick wins that boost sales on any night.

So today we're going to talk about a challenge that every bar faces and not all over all the time, but every bar will face this at least once a month, which is just a slow night that can destroy your weekly numbers. And I think it's important to really talk about this this time of year because we're coming at the end of spring into summer. We have a lot of areas, especially around the United States, where we're going to have bad thunderstorms, power outages, wind storms. We've been dealing with that all through March and April.

But it continues through May, June, July, and August. And so what can we do to help deal with this? Because anytime we have bad weather, and this is true for snow days in winter too, we're going to have one these really slow nights where also during the summer we have events that happen. You know, maybe there's a fair in your county or there's some festival or something going on that's going to take away from your business.

And we need a plan to deal with that. So today we're going to explore proven methods to maintain profitability even when your guest count dips for a night. Now, the big thing in here is that on a night where we have a dip in sales or a weekend that we have a dip in sales or a few days where we have a deep dip in sales.

Chris Schneider (01:37.858)
Our variable costs change, right? Our labor goes down, our food costs goes down, all that comes down, but our fixed costs don't move at all. So we always have to make sure that we have the ability to cover those fixed costs. Another problem that we have when we run into any these slow nights is that staff morale suffers, especially for our front of house folks. Our friend at house folks are working on the idea. I mean, really, their whole job is based upon getting tips.

So when they don't get those tips, when they can't work or when it's slow, that really hurts them around it. Quite frankly, it can hurt their entire life if it's slow for too long. The other thing that can happen, and this is not likely if it's just an event or a rainstorm or something that causes a small blip in your sales. But if that continues, it can actually build and create negative momentum. That's going to make it harder for you to be successful in the future. And the other big impact that happens on those slow nights is a lot of times people have knee jerk

reactive marketing. Where they're going, my God, I need to do something to fix this problem now, now, now. They could have maybe saved some of the problem if they were just proactive from the start.

Chris Schneider (02:49.71)
So really today, as we talk about ways to deal with these small dips in sales that are going to happen every once in a while throughout summer as just a course of business and really throughout the entire year as a course of business, we're going talk about three things. We're going to start by talking about staffing. Then we're going talk about revenue optimization. And then we're to talk about building consistent traffic so that these events can't hurt you. So with staffing, the big thing here is when it gets slow, you need to have less people. Now that should be obvious, right?

At slow, I need less people. But what I see way, way, way, way, way too often is we know, let's say, tomorrow night, there's going to be a terrible rainstorm. And we know it. And there's going to be wind and hail and tornadoes, let's say, and thunder and lightning. So a really bad spring summer storm in the United States. We know that storm is going to be one of those.

No, we don't know obviously exactly when it's gonna hit, what it's gonna do and all that. And normally tomorrow night, let's say we would have three servers on, a bartender and two people in our kitchen. What most owners do is go, hmm, it's gonna be slow tomorrow night. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Now it's not taking a proactive approach to this at all. You're not really utilizing your staff in a way that's going to get that labor down. So the first thing when it comes to your staff strategies for these slower nights, especially if you can predict them, like the weather is going to be lower, implement an early cut procedure, right? If I know I have three people on the floor, front of house, and I think it's going to be slow, cut one the night before. And then be really quick.

to cut people as especially weather conditions worsen or if there's an event that's taking people away from your bar as that event kicks in and you know that it's not going to get better because people are at that event cut staff early. Now one of the biggest tools to help you be able to cut staff early is to make sure that your entire staff is cross training. We've talked about cross training before. But being able to put people into different jobs when you are slow is absolutely crucial.

Chris Schneider (05:02.338)
to keeping that labor cost down when you have these blip type slow nights. But the thing that you always have to keep in mind...

Because it can be far too easy to do this. You're balancing labor with service. Yes, our labor needs to be as low as we can get it. Yes, it is our absolute goal to keep labor as humanly low as possible. Yes, we need to cut, cut, cut. But the second you cut to the point you're sacrificing service, you've hurt your own business more than you've helped it.

So cut, be on top of those labor statistics, be on top of your financials. Make sure that when you see it's going to be slower for weather or outside events or whatever, that you're cutting that labor back, but also make sure you're not sacrificing your guest experience. Now that brings us to revenue optimization. So revenue optimization. What are some things we can do on slow nights? Well, A, throw out a special that's a high margin food item or a high margin cocktail. And yes, it's a special, so it needs to have a good price.

But you can mix price and volume really well. Think of things like getting a one pound baked potato and loading it full of stuff. Right? Cheese, meat, sour cream, onions, peppers, whatever you're putting on this potato. Potato is going to cost you like 50 cents. The potato costs basically nothing and it's huge. So you can take a potato and for three or four dollars worth of cost make a

Great potato that has a bunch of stuff on it. If you're running a standard 33 % cost or 25 % cost, if it's three, four bucks, you're looking at about 12 bucks to sell it.

Chris Schneider (06:45.4)
to a box, you could say, well, that's a lot for potato, but if it's loaded and it's good, you're going to sell it, and that's going to help you have a higher margin item that is a special to help you build in those sales and to not lose revenue on that slower night. Another good way to optimize revenue, and I always like to do this on Sundays, is to bundle your food and beverage. So, you know, game day special, you get a pitcher of beer, an order of wings, and two sandwiches.

Now is that going to be a special? That's yeah, it's like 40 bucks. Probably a lot of places you're getting two sandwiches wings. You're getting a pitcher of beer. It's going to be 40 bucks or something like that, but it gives you a bundle to attract people in. It figures out their food and drink for them. It makes it really easy, especially when you have a sports crowd.

The other thing you always want to make sure that you're doing when it's slow, and we've talked about this in the last couple of weeks, is upselling. So make sure you've trained your staff on upselling techniques. There's always a way to squeeze a little bit more money out of every table and do it in a way that improves the guest experience and does not hurt the guest experience. So when you're doing that, just make sure, hey, we're upselling. Because if you can upsell, you can sometimes get rid of the...

fact that there are a few people in there, right? And the revenue numbers, it won't make any difference. Now, in order to avoid this problem, though, altogether, the real key here is building consistent traffic. And we've talked about consistent traffic a lot, but develop weekly events, right? If you know Wednesday is always slow, do something on Wednesday that's going to bring people in. You know, Tuesday is always slow. Do something on Tuesday. The only night that I find is almost impossible to have something work and actually bring in business is Monday.

I think Monday night is almost not saveable in that regard. They will always be slow. But Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, if those are slower nights for you, have an event. Have karaoke, have trivia, have bingo, have something to pull those folks in the door. Target specific customer segments on different nights, right? If you're creating these specials and you're creating these events, make sure you're targeting a specific demographic, a specific guest avatar that is one of the guest avatars that you

Chris Schneider (09:00.642)
have all the time in your bar. And that's why when you do from trivia to say a poker game to say karaoke, you're hitting three totally separate groups of people. But for a neighborhood bar, for a bar that's really reflecting their community, you're going to have all those different types of people that are coming in. So you can bring them in on different nights, create that loyalty on different nights, which in turn, make sure that your sales say flatter and are less susceptible to ups and downs from weather and outside events and all of that.

Finally, use your social media strategically. Right? Get out there, do it, do it well, but make sure that you're posting well in advance your specials and everything as they're happening. And when you have bad weather, acknowledge it. When you have an event in town, acknowledge it.

and just kind of try to sell into it. For example, and this is a bad example because I'm not actually recommending you do this, but if you look all across the Gulf Coast in the United States, there are hurricane parties. Literally, bars hold lock-in hurricane parties. Now, if you're a bar that does that, great. If you're a bar that doesn't do that, great. If you're going to do that you don't do that now, talk to your insurance agent first.

Please be careful if you're throwing hurricane parties, but that's a wonderful way to take what is a terrible natural disaster that will shut down a business for days. And instead have 24 hours or 48 hours of straight sales because you have guests locked in your bar drinking. Point is, use your social media strategically, leverage what's in front of you. But remember, slow nights don't have to destroy your week. They don't have to destroy your month. If you plan properly,

you staff intelligently and you use strategic promotions, you can maintain profitability even during the quieter periods.