United States
The quality and the characteristics of your equipment are essential for offering your clients the best service but, in order to work really well and maximize your time, you also need to ensure that the space is organized in a functional way.
So here are some tips on how to organize the counter top of the bar, which will help you to prepare coffees, cappuccinos and cocktails stress-free and will also allow you to clean and organize your “work equipment ” with minimum effort.
Handy and functional spaces to guarantee the efficiency of your bar counter.
Organizing your bar counter, both on the serving side and the customers’ side will help you to offer the optimum service, fast but at the same time elegant and clean.
In managing your spaces it is also important that the staff have the possibility to move around freely, without hindering the work of others or creating any kind of stressful situation.
This is why the central passageway must be relatively spacious: ideally between 90 cm (35,4 inches) and 1meter (39,4 inches).
The bar counter : organizing the bartender’s side
A good bartender has to organize his work area as well as possible, starting from the positioning of the beating heart of the bar area, the espresso machine.
Usually it is placed in the centre of the work counter and our advice is to put the two coffee grinders to the right of it, one for the classic blend and one for the decaffeinated blend.
To the left of the machine you can position the milk jugs, each one placed inside the cooling tray containing ice.
In the remaining space you can find space for the chocolate, the tour mix, the microwave oven, the scales and the electric oven.
As far as the preparation counter is concerned, it is possible to create one or two work stations based on the length of the counter.
Each area will have the saucers for espresso, cappuccino and latte macchiato, with the appropriate spoons (in the dedicated stainless steel containers), and also the decorations and toppings container needed for preparing artistic coffees; and finally the shot glasses for serving the water which accompanies the coffee.
The work station for aperitifs and cocktails
The work station dedicated to preparing aperitifs and cocktails is also very important.
What you must provide, besides obviously the bottles necessary for the various preparations, is a drip tray in black silicone, containers for fruit decorations, Boston shaker, food blender and other tools and equipment needed for preparing drinks.
A specific area must be dedicated to the glasses, which must be of various sizes but of the same type.
The bar counter: organizing the customer side
The serving counter facing the customer is in some way the business card of the bar itself, because it is exposed and visible to the public.
As far as organizing it is concerned, besides always keeping it clean and tidy, our advice is to create one or more areas, depending on the length of the bar.
Each area should have the sugar dispensers full, with different types of sugar or sugar alternative (white, brown, sweetener, fructose and honey) and serviette dispensers always filled.
How do you organize your work station?
Do have any handy hints to share?