I recently got back behind the bar after a stint in the wonderful world of 9-5 (that crushed my mental health more that the bar ever did), and due to a series of events I've now accepted the role of bar manager and am tasked with helping to get things a bit more in line.

In addition to bartending 4 shifts per week, I'm in charge of the cocktail program, scheduling, event planning, inventory and policy making.

Cocktail Program - We are actually a 'Hyper Local' focused bar, so all the base spirits for our cocktails are from local distilleries (beer taps also local) so there isn't a lot of swing in what we use, I simply look for the new products and see about incorporating them into our menu. bingo bango.

Scheduling - with a FOH of less than a dozen, I'm not going to worry about larger scheduling software and will just opt for a Spreadsheet and 3 watts of brain power. I'd love to know what sort of options you use for staff scheduling (if, you know, they are awesome, free, easy - whatever).

Event Planning/Promotions - This was actually a large portion of what I was doing for the last few years, so it's a pretty simple transition for me to take it on as I was on the execution side of events, and know my timing for these things. From a management side, what sort of timeline do you plan out future events and promotions? 2-3 week? 5-6 weeks? Further?

When booking private parties that may fill up your bar, what sort of return are you looking for vs your normal nights? Are you taking deposits, doing contracts? if so, what terms? The events I'd planned were a bit different, so I want to see if there is any sort of industry standard.

Inventory - I was just going to use a spreadsheet and a basic point system, but would love to see what other programs you're using.

Policy Making - Considering most bar policies line up pretty well, is there a stock version out there anyone has used that I can tweak? I'm not looking forward to 30 hours of writing policies from scratch if I can avoid it (our bar is newer and this has been lacking).

any other tips, tricks, resources that you find helpful? let me know!

Cheers Everyone!