How can I keep my bar costs low?

    Published: 06-16-2009
    Views: 12,325
    Wedding planner Kay Williams suggests some ways to keep the cost down at the bar.

    Host: How can I keep my bar cost low?

    Kay Williams: When it come to bar cost, do one thing, get a caterer who is actually going to be able to -- if you are not doing the hotel wedding, have him set up a bar for you and direct the person who is serving at the bar to give each person the type of a drink. You understand? They want to order the fine wine or the fine liquor, fine, but you make sure that you school that person to serve the drink and you let them know. Once you serve this person here you need to put this liquor back here or you have a limited amount of liquor then you make sure that you serve them the appropriate amount in the appropriate glass because each -- like a margarita is not served in a shot glass. It's not served in a wine glass. It's served in a margarita glass. You need to make sure that the glasses relate to the alcohol you serve. If you are doing beer, make sure that you know is best for the beer or not to have beer at all or they have beer bottles, not a floating beer that you are actually draining out of a beer gallon to the cup. Don't do that. Have bottles that saves your cost, because you are not wasting on this alcohol going out and finally, you have open bars and no one is there and it maybe one server is there and you are just serving -- you get confused. Have more that one server. Usually you have two to three servers. That means someone will work on the fine liquor, someone can look over the wine, someone will look on the bottled drinks. You need to know, you need to be ready, you need to be ready to go. You need to know what is what but always watch what you are putting here. Like for example, if you are going to have scotch put a little ice in there; put little cubes of ice in there. Who will want their scotch without ice in it? If you are serving alcohol you want scotch unless they don't put ice in there, put a little ice in there. That cuts down when you are putting liquor in that cup. So you need to know the person that you hire; the caterer or their staff, they need to know how to serve drinks. You need to have a bartender. A bar server who actually knows how to serve people at a bar, because they can actually watch, they know what to do. They know how to mix the drinks. You don't want someone giving a mixed drink and you have too much vodka in here; your vodka is already gone already. So you need to know someone who already knows what they are doing. Have a caterer who does know about liquor and about serving drinks.