Quirt Period Between Lunch and Evening Trade – Bar Restaurant
Summer Trade
Unless you Bar Restaurant is located right near a busy beach you probably will have a quite period between the end of lunch and the start of the evening trade. This means that you could be very tired come the evening shift.
What are your options?
Well you could close from say 4:30 – 7 pm and then when you re-open you’ll feel refreshed and ready for the busy evening shift.
Are there any problems involved in doing that?
Well! when you return the local will be very hot inside and you will have lost some trade whilst you were closed, but it’s an option that many bar restaurant owners go for nevertheless.
You could leave a staff member in charge to sell drinks and simple snacks.
This is quite a good system, but you’ll need to have certain security checks in place to ensure that everything is going through the till. The best idea is to train staff that each time they serve something, it MUST be written on the customers bill. The reason for this, is that some staff will invite their friends and family when they know that you’re not going to be in the restaurant. If you pop in and out at unexpected times, you can look at the customer’s bills and see easily weather you are being cheated or not.
Take regular “X” readings
This also helps you to know if your losing money, as staff who steal usually put money in the till without ringing it up and then remove the excess cash later,when they get a chance.
You will need to keep on you toes if you don’t want to get ripped-off.
I hope that I have been helpful.
Cashing Up at the End of the Day in Your Spanish Bar
When running your new English bar or restaurant in Spain you will need to be very diligent about securing your premises at night. I am only going to talk about one aspect of security today and that is your cash register.
After closing the windows at the end of day, switch-off most of the lights. By this I mean switch off all the exterior lighting and the entire interior lighting, leaving on only a light above your cash register. Make sure that you lock yourself in.
Next switch the cash register’s mode key to “Z” and push the enter key. This will give you a print out on the day’s takings and also zero out the till ready for the next day’s trading. When the till has finished the print out for the total day’s takings, roll the print out up, take all the notes out of the till and put both the print out and the banknotes into a small shoulder bag, which you can hide under your coat, as you are leaving your business.
Throughout this entire operation have your wits about you and be extremely vigilant. Be on the look-out particularly for any strange customer who may have been in your bar or restaurant watching the till, looking at your security system or acting in a suspicious manner towards the end of the evening. Also be on the look-out for people who may be lurking around outside the bar. If you feel that a person is acting suspiciously, have a night cap and wait a while and if the person has not left by then, simply call the police and they will come and stand by whilst you close up.
When you finally leave your bar with your takings in a small bag beneath your coat, always have a decoy bag with a little cash in it on your shoulder or in your hand. If you are robbed then hand over the decoy bag freely.
I have given you the wisest system for closing up, but if you can remove some of your cash from the till mid-afternoon, it means that you’ll be carrying far less cash when you close up at night.
Don’t forget that it is a condition of your insurance cover that you must leave the till draw both open and empty. If a thief is thinking about robbing your bar when it is closed he or she will see through the window that you have left the till empty and move on to look for a more promising prospect.
We have had our bar in West-Marbella on the Costa del Sol for 20 years, and touch wood, have never been robbed of the takings.
