Super Bowl XLIX

I'm working a Super bowl party on Sunday.

This is for a repeat client so I wanted to make it a little fun.  The cocktail menu is based on a drink for each of the teams that started the elimination rounds.  The goal is the guess what team each drink is for.  

I am not a football follower by any means so I don't have a team I want to win.  I wanted to dress up some way to be part of the fun but didn't know what to do.   I thought of getting a team jersey but if people started to ask me questions about the team, I wouldn't be able to answer them.    So I decided to dress as a referee instead. 

At least I can penalize party goers for party fowls.   Penalty, spilled drink, 2 shots tequila, 1st down.  

😊

Continuos improvements

Let's start by saying my girlfriend is the most incredible woman on the planet.

I like to try and make at least one improvement after each event.   My girlfriend is also a bartender and suggested these spouts to put directly on to large mouth juice bottles.  The last event I worked had a full one gallon container of cranberry juice I had to use for pouring.  Those large containers tend to slosh and can spill or over pour and ruin a drink.   

I'm hoping these spouts will help make pouring more manageable.  

Thank you to my incredibly supportive girlfriend.  

 

Smarter business practices

Do you have a question you would like an answer too?   Email, facebook, twitter, or instagram me and let me know.  

So recently I've been searching for ways of being a better business owner.  My search brought me to the podcast called Automate My Small Business https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/automate-my-small-business/id333884034?mt=2  

These two guys are great. The ideas they share are credible.  They share their ideas and practices on ways to make parts of business run better.

After listening to them I decided to try and apply some of their suggestions.  This week I decided to get serious about completing a spreadsheet that would help me provide more accurate estimations of needed supplies for clients.   

My time is proving to be limited, and more valuable than ever before. I can't sit and creat this spreadsheet myself even though I have been trying to for at least 6 months.   So I decided to outsource this project. I went to the site fiver.com and found a person who would build my spreadsheet to do what I wanted.   His work was credible good, he completed it in a couple days with my feed back in the Developement.   Couldn't be happier with his service.   Now I can use this tool.  

This was completed in a few days were it was taking me months to make any progress.  

Lesson learned- as a small business owner I can't always do everything myself and I need to be more ready to delegate tasks that I can do but aren't a priority for ME to do.   

   

 http://www.bartendervince.com

50th birthday in 1950 Hollywood style

This past weekend I bartended a 50th birthday party for a great lady.  She had old school 1950 Hollywood theme.   It was estimated 160 people would drink alcohol out of 220 guests.   From the get go the bar was slammed  I think everyone in attendance decided to come to the bar.  

The client decided on 1 signature cocktail and 4 others standard cocktails.  A keg of beer and a couple wines were also available.  We set up a self serve station with water, lemonade, and sweet tea.  The drinks were a hit and the party kept going till the closing time.  Alcohol service stopped 1 hour before the end to give people sober up time before leaving the venue.  

During the night we ran out of the raspberries for the signature cocktail.   I even overestimated the amount but still ran short.  The Scarlett O'Hare cocktail was a huge hit of the party.  

The bar was set up as shown. 

 

The Menu

Lessons from the night, speed up the processes.  I thing I will pre mix my sweet and sour formula in advance rather than have to measure and mix the 2 ingredients then and there.  

I thing more clear signage to direct guests is needed.  Clearly show wine and beer at one station while cocktails at another and the self serve table marked more noticeably.