Why the bar runs out at nine

How we work

Staff it properly, stock it accurately

The three things hosts under-order are ice, glassware and staff, and all three fail at about the same point in the evening. Ice especially — in a Florida summer the figure people have in mind is roughly half what an event actually gets through.

Staffing is the other half. One bartender serving a hundred and fifty guests means a queue forming within twenty minutes, and a queue at the bar is the thing people remember about an event. The honest number is usually one more than the host wanted to pay for.

Then there is the part nobody enjoys. Someone will have had enough, and a bartender has to say so. Agreeing that policy at booking, in writing, means it happens quietly on the night instead of becoming an argument with the person paying the bill.