1954 Practical Bar Management by Eddie Clarke

PRACTICAL BAR MANAGEMENT

THE SMALLER HOUSE

However small the establishment, a reasonable Liquor Control can be maintained providing a not too ambitious analysis is attempted. In the smaller house there are certain additional drawbacks to the enforcement of control,in as much as there is a general lack of clerical staff to do the work, and the atmosphere amongst staff is more intimate. Naturally, in a situation where the maid, or perhaps the gardener, may relieve in the bar on the barman s day off, and the Manager may relieve the maid, or gardener, for the evening meal, it is inadvisable to place too much additional clerical responsibility on the bar. The limited staff available should not become burdened with unnecessary detail, but no deviation should be permitted from the schedule commenced. The Proprietor, or Manager,will normally assume responsibility for the key routine,and where circumstances permit will not only undertake personally the ordering of all supplies, but will assume responsibility for the wine and spirit reserve stocks. However small these may be, the method is advantageous as he will have a better idea of the actual con sumption, and furthermore, by reducing the stock under the barman's control, stocktaking procedure will be simplified. A record of these reserve stocks should be maintained in some easy form, and this may be done on a Bin or Tally Card (Fig. 2), or on a simple stock record (Fig. 5)- . To explain how the Stock Book is entered up refer to the example shown in Fig. 5- It will be seen that certain items are shown here in heavy type: this is to indicate entries in red ink. In this way we distinguish (in the Received and Issued column) between goods taken into cellar charge(red ink)and issues made from the cellar to the bar(black). In our example commencing stock is entered in the column dated I Jan.—in black ink—with relative cost price in red. In the Received and Issued column purchases are shown in red, and where the price of these differs from the price of existing stock of that item the new price is written in above the entry. Actual purchase price of stock remaining can then be readily calculated at any time.

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