- 4 hours ago
Tobin Ellis, founder and principal of Studio Barmagic, has spent nearly 30 years designing and operating bars around the world. Through his new book Bar Design Essentials, Ellis shares why workflow, hospitality, and beverage strategy matter more than ever in the modern restaurant business.
Watch now to learn why most bars are designed backward, how hospitality is changing as people drink less, and why great service still drives the restaurant business.
Sponsored by:
• TOAST - All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://bit.ly/3vpeVsc
Watch now to learn why most bars are designed backward, how hospitality is changing as people drink less, and why great service still drives the restaurant business.
Sponsored by:
• TOAST - All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://bit.ly/3vpeVsc
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00What have you seen with non-alcoholic drinks and how that impacts bars?
00:03Exploding. Huge. I've got a fridge right outside of my house right here,
00:07and it used to be all liquor, and it's half non-alcoholic now. And when friends come over,
00:11they grab it just as much. There's a placebo effect. And I forget that I'm not drinking
00:15alcohol, and I don't care. Welcome to Restaurant Influencers, presented by Entrepreneur. I'm your
00:28host, Sean Walcheff. This is a Cali BBQ Media production in life, in the restaurant business,
00:34and in the new creator economy. We learn through lessons and stories. Today's guest has so many
00:41lessons and so many stories that he recently wrote a book. It's called Bar Design Essentials.
00:48I was very fortunate that I was at the bar and restaurant show this year covering the event,
00:55and I went to the Hoshizaki booth, and Tobin was there putting on a demonstration,
01:01sharing the secrets, sharing the lessons. I got to meet Tobin, record some content with the
01:06Hoshizaki team, and I asked Tobin, can you come and share your secrets with our Restaurant Influencer
01:12audience? And here he is. Tobin, welcome to the show. Thanks, Sean. Good to see you again.
01:17Grateful to have you, man. I've been reading your book. It's funny. I sent a text message to Eric,
01:23who's my business partner. He is the first bartender, bar manager that I hired in 2008 when
01:30we opened up our restaurant. My best friend from college, Corey Robinson, and I, we took a liquor
01:36license, took over a breakfast concept, and said, wouldn't it be a great idea if we designed a bar
01:42experience for the NFL Sunday crowd, and we built out this amazing Bloody Mary program and craft beer
01:51program and took care of the community? Well, the problem was is that we didn't know how to open up
01:56a bar. We had both grown up in restaurants, but we didn't have bartending experience, so I put out
02:02an ad on Craigslist. I found Eric. He came to the parking lot, and he had bar experience. I hired
02:11him,
02:11and the funny thing is I gave him a book, which is, he still jokes to this day, but it
02:16was
02:16bartending for dummies. The reason why I gave him the book was not to teach him how to bartend,
02:21because obviously he knew how to bartend, but it was more of like, how can we conceptually look at
02:26the space, and how do we design the best bar? I wish I had your book, because I could have
02:34learned,
02:34and Corey could have learned, and Eric could have learned. Even knowledgeable people, the way that
02:40you broke down this book, it's because you lived it. I love the fact that you said you wanted to
02:45write
02:4618 years ago, but you actually had to go and do the work. Tell us a little bit about your
02:51background. Let's just start there. Let's start with the why the book.
02:57Well, the why the book, I'll tell you a quick story. Last week, the owner of my favorite pizzeria
03:03on planet Earth gave me a call. He was trying to text me to get a hold of me. His
03:07name's Jerry.
03:08I grew up in Rochester, New York, and I've been lucky to travel the whole world. We live in
03:13Brooklyn half the year, so just about every great pizzeria that exists, I've been there.
03:18I'm very lucky to, but this place is my favorite. It's called Pontillos. Jerry called me up, and he
03:23said, I finally got the space next to the pizza shop. I'm going to open a restaurant. Can you help
03:27me with the bar design? I knew that was coming. I'm like, man, what do you got for key money?
03:33He's
03:33like 200 grand. I'm like, I will do whatever I can, but I want to buy the book. I wrote
03:40the book
03:40because I never had an answer for all the independents and all the people out there that
03:44are trying to build their first or second spot. They know they're smart. They know they want the
03:49bar to be profitable and make sense, and just like a kitchen needs to, but they don't know how to
03:53do it,
03:53and they don't know where to go. I have this company, Studio Bar Magic, and I work with a lot
03:58of luxury
04:00scaled hotels and things, and they can afford that, and they see the value too, but not everyone
04:06can, and I'm just one person, so I went, can I take everything that I've jammed and crammed up in
04:12here for the last 30 years, and how do I share it? How do I share it in the most
04:16helpful way to the
04:17industry that I love, that we all love? And so, yeah, so 20 years ago, I was like, oh, man,
04:23we need a
04:23book on this, and then I started writing, and I went, I don't know the answer to that, or I
04:27don't know
04:27what that's called, or I don't know how to do that yet. I'm like, yeah, I'm not ready to write
04:30this book,
04:30but someone should, because I wanted this book, because I was starting to design bars 25 years ago,
04:37so I wrote it for everyone who gets in that spot, whether they're a bartender, an architect, an owner,
04:43a chef, it doesn't matter, and they are involved in something to do with renovating, building, or trying
04:49to optimize a bar, or scaled number of bars, and they just don't know everything, all the little details,
04:56the dimensions, the best practices, why you do this, why you don't do that, and it's the first
05:02time anyone's done that. It also happens to be the first time it was done. It's been done by someone
05:07who has a very, I bartended for 25 years, and I put that perspective in it, so I worked in
05:12New York,
05:13Vegas, where I live half the year. I've worked at, you know, Pure Nightclub was the busiest nightclub in
05:18the world for several years. I was one of the head bartenders there. I worked Tavern on the Green in
05:22Manhattan. I worked Sequoias in Georgetown. I opened for Fridays for a dozen years, a hundred years ago,
05:27a pretty wide background that I was lucky to be trained and put in situations where I got
05:34really high volume experience and also high-end luxury experience and sort of figured out like,
05:40hey, if you want to make this stuff work, you can't just have an architect or a food service
05:46consultant or a dealer or whoever just drop ice bins and refrigeration behind a counter and call it a
05:51day. And that's what most people kind of do one way or another. It's really kind of what happens,
05:56right? I mean, I've seen your bar. I looked you up. You guys, your bar shows me that you understand
06:03your business. You know, you got service rails on your counter and you put your pickup in the center
06:08of the counter. So you created a dedicated space so servers can get in and out because that's throughput
06:12right there. And if you don't do that, then your servers have to kind of argue with the guests and
06:18like, hey, this is our spot. Can you move out of the way? Like operators learn over time how to
06:24improve their bar, but they don't have a way to start off with those insights. They have to learn
06:30them the hard way. So I just try to help people be a little bit smarter and better about building
06:36beautiful bars that actually deliver performance because that's what they're there for.
06:40Let's talk about just the foundational principles of how you build a bar.
06:46Why are there so many beautiful bars in the world that are terrible bars?
06:53Because the food service industry, the hospitality industry has always and continues to prioritize
06:59three things, aesthetics, timeline, and budget money. Those are always, no matter what anybody says,
07:06when it comes down to it, it's, well, is that going to delay the project? How much is that going
07:09to
07:09cost? Yeah. But what, but how many, how many hard hat tours have you been on me? Yeah. Uh,
07:17not many actually. I haven't been on, I've been on a ton and I'll tell you what they do every
07:21single
07:22time. So this is going to be a chandelier. That's going to be Italian marble. And I'm always like,
07:27great. Where's the pickup? Where are you putting the support section? Where's the pass? How are you
07:31going to? And they're like, what? No, no, that's not the cool stuff. Yes, it is. That's the cool stuff.
07:35Because the cool stuff is what keeps you in business. Um, it's just that we don't have the
07:40right people, uh, joining that conversation. They've always been left out. And that right
07:45person is someone who really understands bar operations, beverage operations down to individual
07:51workflows. You can't say you bartended 20 years ago in college, or you're a chef. So you get it. No,
07:57you don't. You don't. What's the difference? This is the, I talked to food service designers and they,
08:02they, they try to argue sometimes and say, it's the same. It's just a kitchen on the,
08:05in the front of the house with liquid. I'm like, okay, so triangle, right? Kitchen triangle.
08:09Everyone knows the, the triangle in the kitchen. There's no triangle behind a bar. Yeah. You don't
08:14build by a triangle theory that I smashed that immediately because a triangle forces the human
08:20to turn their back on the guests constantly. You don't want to be spinning to the back bar.
08:24You always want to be like an athlete facing the field. That's just one of a hundred little insights
08:29that you cannot know. You do not know if you haven't done the job. And so that's why bars get
08:36built so poorly is because the people building them never worked behind them. And that's critical.
08:42You have to tell you build a better golf club. If you never swung one, definitely not,
08:48you know, all the engineering in the world doesn't make a better golf club, a great golfer who
08:53understands what the club needs to do specifically down to the most micro granular detail is what
08:59working with an engineer is what makes a great golf club. Same with the bar.
09:04Bring me back to the beginning, making cocktails for your dad at 11.
09:10He used to come home from work, walk, walk through the door, whistling,
09:13beef eater and tonic about three fingers of beef eater, lime glass. And my first job,
09:18sort of my first daily chore at my dad's was to set the table, make his drink, set the table,
09:24clear the table for dinner. And, uh, I was an only child and I, I don't know why, but to
09:32me from the,
09:33from 11 years old, it was how few trips can I take from the kitchen to the dining room table
09:39to set the
09:39table and how few to clear it was. I don't know if it was a game or what it was
09:44and making his drink.
09:45It was like, I, I heard his car come in the driveway and I went over to the bar and
09:51started
09:51making his drink and I knew exactly how he liked it. And it just cracks me up because, you know,
09:5610 years later I'm working behind bars and I'm looking out the windows at our regulars coming in
10:00and Oh, Oh, I got to get that old fashioned ready. He sits over here. I know. And then he's
10:04going to
10:04have a Killian's big boy, 23 ounce right afterwards. Make sure the Killian's is gold. I don't know,
10:09man. It was just, uh, I guess it was just in my blood like it is for a lot of
10:13us. Right.
10:13Did you know that toast powers over 140,000 restaurants across the United States, Canada
10:20and UK? It's an incredible company. I'm on the toast customer advisory board. They are proud
10:25sponsors of this show, restaurant influencers. We couldn't do it without their support. They
10:30power our barbecue restaurants in San Diego. If you have questions about toast, if you're thinking
10:35about bringing toast on to be your primary technology partner at your restaurants, please reach out to me.
10:41I'm happy to get a local toast representative to take care of you. You can reach me at Sean P
10:46Welch on
10:47Instagram. Once again, thank you to toast for believing in the power of technology, the power
10:52of storytelling, the power of hospitality back to the show. Yeah. I mean, I would love, it's so
10:59interesting. So many of the guests we have on the show, we're obsessed with storytellers. We're
11:02obsessed with the hospitality profession. We're obsessed with technology. Um, I honestly, for as long as
11:08we've been doing the show, we have neglected the bar to be fully transparent. Um, until,
11:13until I got, no, but until I got your book, it just brought me back to so many of those
11:18conversations. I mean, if we're honest about it, I wouldn't even be here talking to you if it wasn't
11:23for the type 47 license, like the type 47 liquor license that I got the ability to purchase from my
11:30grandfather to bring into that breakfast. That was, that was the business plan. The business plan was
11:34take the breakfast, turn it in to a sports bar, use this liquor license and make this place a pop
11:41in place at 10 AM on a NFL Sunday, um, packed so that, you know, fans and families are there
11:46taking
11:47care of each other. And yet here we are in 2026 and we're in the world of AI and we're
11:53in the world
11:53of tech, but we don't think about the labor behind the bar and the profitability behind the bar. And not
11:59only that, but we also have a decrease in alcohol consumption. You know, the, the elephant in the
12:03room, let, let's number one, address the elephant in the room. Let's talk about the decline in, um,
12:08in liquor sales, beer sales. Um, yeah, so there's no infill. Yeah, there's no infill. So our generation,
12:15you know, my generation, the Gen X, and then each one down, they were the infill. We get older,
12:21we drink less, we're more health conscious. We have more priorities. We can't go out and party all
12:25the time or whatever. And then we had a generation to come in and do the same thing. This latest
12:30generation went, yeah, no, that's cool. I don't want to do that. And they don't drink.
12:33Nearly as much. And they also are samplers. They are not regulars. And that changed culturally with
12:39everyone in digital media is a big reason for that. You got to feed the gram and the gram doesn't
12:44want
12:44to see the same drink from the same bar, even twice in a row. So we've learned, turned into this
12:51experiential sampling society where it's like, I just want to collect all the experiences. I don't
12:56necessarily want to be a part of one for too long other than the digital experience. That's where my
13:01home base is. It's not in the real world. Those two things together really made it so that this
13:07restaurant bubble that has been talked about and floated for 20 years. Oh, there's going to be a
13:12restaurant bubble. You watch, there'll be a restaurant bubble. It's here and it's bursting
13:16because about 15 years ago, everyone decided I'm going to open a bar, a restaurant, a cafe,
13:22a barbecue, a coffee shop, whatever it is, everybody, like everyone, no business in the industry
13:26doesn't matter. No business plan. I just need some money. And those were supported by this new
13:33culture, this new customer journey mapping, which is I go to a place, I discover a place digitally.
13:39I go to it once and I probably never go back again, but I got my photo and I have
13:43a story
13:44and I'm collecting stories and moments. I'm not trying to be part of a real world community.
13:50I'm trying to be part of a digital community. And so that kind of made it seem like everything was
13:56fine, but the red flags flew a long time ago. And you know this, so everywhere you've ever lived,
14:05there used to be a handful of restaurants that were busy seven days a week from the minute they
14:10unlocked the doors to the minute they did last call. Everywhere. Those places still exist, but they're not
14:16busy seven days a week. They're busy four days a week now or three. And it's not right when they
14:21open the doors and they stop doing lunch because they couldn't compete with, I mean, grocery stores
14:26took the lunch business away, right? And the Panera Breads of the world, getting people in and out in
14:3110 minutes, super cheap, make them feel like they got a value. All of that stuff chomped away at the
14:37multi-day part and all the peak volume abundance that we used to have. Now, because people are drinking so
14:45much less and because it's harder to get them, A, to walk in the door, to find you, digital discovery,
14:50right? And B, to come back, it is so much more important that you capitalize on that peak volume.
14:56When you have those three or four hours, two nights a week, you cannot leave a penny on the table.
15:02And if
15:02you're not set up to be in the weeds, when you get in the weeds, you're going to leave it
15:07all on the table and
15:08you're just going to leak and bleed cash. Very true. It's extremely interesting what has happened,
15:16what the generational shifts for sure. What have you seen with non-alcoholic drinks and how that
15:22impacts bars? Exploding, huge. And it's interesting because when it first started, it was performative,
15:29right? It was this amenity you had to have. No one ordered it, but you had to have it. You
15:33couldn't
15:33just not have non-alcoholic. You needed beer and you needed non-alcoholic cocktails. I'm an example.
15:40I've got a fridge right outside of my house right here and it used to be all liquor and it's
15:43half
15:44non-alcoholic now. And when friends come over, they grab it just as much. Moderation, the improvement
15:52of non-alcoholic beverages. I mean, look at athletic brewing. I started serving athletic brewing to guests
15:58at our home about four years ago, three years ago. And the first time I didn't tell them,
16:03I just poured them a beer because I want to see, do they notice, do they care? And there's an
16:08interesting thing that happens in your brain. If your brain, if your senses don't immediately
16:16detect a structural difference in what's going into your body, your brain, there's a placebo effect.
16:21And I, I just happens all the time. I'll go and I'll have a Negroni at a bar. And then
16:25if they have a
16:25good NA Negroni, I'll have it. And I forget that I'm not drinking alcohol and I don't care.
16:31And now I can still get to catch a nice little buzz, but I'm not over consuming. I'm not,
16:37I'm not overspending, although now NA drinks are popping in price. But when you look at the data too,
16:44right? So if you look at some of the top data sources, WSRI and all the places that aggregate all
16:50of the drinking trends, I mean, the non-alcoholic category has been blown up for a while, but it's not
16:54showing any signs of slowing. Um, it's what I think it is, is it's an excitement for people to
17:02be able to experience a hospitality venue and feel like they're part of the full experience
17:06and not be left out and be forced to have a club soda, a Coke, a water, or a cranberry
17:12with club
17:13soda on top. So you have barbecue and that's why people come and find you and they have to find
17:19you.
17:19I looked, I did Google your address. I told you, I told you, you've got no one's accidentally
17:24walking into your barbecue. No chance. No, you're not, you're not lost in gas lamp and you stumble
17:29upon Cali barbecue. You're intentionally driving and, and you're questioning if you should be where
17:35you are. Yeah, but that's part of the discovery. That's the excitement. People love that stuff,
17:39right? So they get there, they get in and love the barbecues banging. Yeah. No, it's not. If you
17:44don't have something to drink and not everybody wants alcohol. And for the ones that do, it's the
17:48same, it's still the same thing. It doesn't matter if the effle alcohol is in there or not. It's an
17:53integral part of the dining experience. Like the bar and beverage has always been the redheaded
17:57stepchild of the industry, but you don't have an industry without us. Yeah. Nobody wants to eat
18:03without beverage. Nobody. So, and beverage makes all the money. So the prioritization of it
18:10actually becomes more important as time goes on, not less important. And it doesn't matter
18:14if consumption is dropping it, that makes it more important. Anytime sales are dropping
18:19in any system, industry, or business, everything else becomes so much more important because sales
18:24used to hide all the problems. Yes. When you're packed at the gills and there's people waiting
18:28out the door, you don't have to have the best service and yeah, you don't have to change the
18:32fryer grease as much. You know, it's fine. You can get away with it. Well, when those volumes
18:37start dropping, every little thing matters more and people pay attention more. So let's talk
18:42about the foundations of a drink, any drink. Uh, let's start with ice. We, uh, we met at the
18:48Hoshizaki booth. Let's talk about how important is ice. Well, it's going to be a large percentage
18:55of the whole drink, right? And it's kind of a few things now. First of all, it's taste because
18:59we're not using all high fructose corn syrup, shelf stable chemical mixes. We're using fresh
19:06ingredients and the chemistry of those ingredients, um, is really volatile such that, you know,
19:11sooner or later, if you start, let's say you fall in love with a Tommy's margarita, which is just a
19:15tequila, agave, and lime juice. And you know what that tastes like. Well, if you go to a bar and
19:20their
19:21lime juice is two days old, you can tell, you may not know that's the reason, but you're like,
19:24this isn't right. Well, if you use, you know, tap water, cheap ice cubes that melt and dilute,
19:33you're ruining that same drink that they're expecting that they've had better elsewhere.
19:37I appeal is huge. You want a nice big solid cube and it doesn't have to be the giant one,
19:42but a lot of people like those. Now you can't get a big giant cube if you don't have the,
19:47yeah, you love it. See, she loves it. Absolutely. Old fashioned ice cube is my friend calls them.
19:52It's exactly actually. Yeah. He calls them the BFICs in his restaurant. That's what he named them.
19:57We need five more BFICs to the bar and you know, people love those jewels. Um,
20:02it's such an important part of the taste, the eye appeal, what kind of pricing strategy you can
20:07command. You know, when you think about the way a burger is constructed, right? This is an
20:12interesting comparison. So burger construction, in my opinion, not as a chef, but as a burger lover,
20:17it's about the construction is about the ability to hold and enjoy and the balance between the amount
20:23of bread, meat and other ingredients and condiments. If one of them's off, the whole thing's lost.
20:28Couldn't agree more.
20:29But with a drink, it's more about the construction is actually construction. You need the, it's not
20:37about too much ice or little ice as much as it is a burger. It's more about, did you make
20:43a drink
20:43that is properly built? Does it have quality ice? Is there a nice wash line? It's not overfilled.
20:48Does the, are the ingredients properly mixed? Is the garnish fresh? Does the whole drink look like it?
20:54Because you're not really looking, you can't look at a green, a glass of green liquid and know what it
20:59tastes like. Yeah. You look at a burger, you know exactly what it's going to taste like. Your brain can
21:03figure that out. But like, I don't know. It's a, is that a whiskey sour? Is that a gin flip?
21:09I don't
21:09know what that is. It's a yellow drink. Let me taste it. So it's really more about signaling.
21:14This is a well-constructed drink and ice is a very big part of that construction.
21:20Tell us about the vessel. How important. Oh yeah. The glass is huge.
21:23Tell us, tell us. It's my favorite water glass. I got these in Italy.
21:27There you go. I travel with a, Sean, I travel only with a backpack most of my whole life, right?
21:33No matter what I'm doing, if I can, I don't ever buy stuff unless I can ship at home. We're
21:37in Italy.
21:38We're in Tuscany. This is like 10 years ago. And I see at the street fair and I go,
21:42look at those hand hammered glasses. I have to have those. I bought 14 of them
21:46and I mule them around in bags for two weeks. Come on. And that's it.
21:51And this is it right here. Look at that. That is amazing. You all 14 still lasted.
21:57I got 14. Cause I knew we'd lose a few. We haven't yet.
22:00I was wondering why it's coming. It's coming. Yeah. And whoever breaks it, they're going to,
22:05then everyone, all my friends know they're going to be like, Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I'm like,
22:08it's fine. That's one of the two extras I bought. You're good.
22:11What, uh, when you walk into a bar, any bar, busy bar, how quickly can you tell that it was
22:17designed improperly? I can tell with a photo, by photo, not, not, not of the equipment. I can tell
22:23from a photo looking through the window. If I can see the counter, I can tell in about 10 seconds.
22:29And so can you, anyone can, there's three things you look for right away. The first thing you look
22:34for as you walk in, as you look for walking, if bartenders are walking behind a bar, that's called
22:39non-value. We do time motion studies for asset managers. We do hotels and stuff. You have value
22:45and non-value movement. So value movement is production, guest interaction, and sales ringing
22:50on the POS. Everything else is non-value. It's sorry, terrible to say, but going to the restroom
22:55is non-value for the business. So pee before you work, but, um, walking is non-value and you might
23:02argue, well, you have to walk to get to things. That's the problem. And that's where the gap is.
23:06And that's the insight. Walking means something wasn't properly set for what needs to happen.
23:11You don't see chefs behind the line walking. They're in their station. That's it. Everything
23:17they need, their mise is right there for when they get wooded and they're in the weeds and
23:21they can knock everything out and keep the ticket times nice and fast. The bar should be
23:25the same way. So that's the first thing is you see lots of walking. It's an inefficient
23:29bar, hands down, no exceptions, no matter what. Two, you look for things out of place.
23:35You look for meese in place, mess out of place. When I go to a bar, when I see bottles
23:41and
23:42anything, just stuff that doesn't clearly have a home. Well, that means that the bartenders
23:46need that stuff there, but a home wasn't built for it there. So the most common example is
23:52you'll see a bunch of bottles on a drain board. Well, the drain board's meant for glassware,
23:55not bottles. So if you've got a bunch of bottles there, that means whoever designed your stations
23:59didn't give you enough bottle storage space. Those are the top two. And then the third really
24:04is looking at it from a guest point of view and walking in is look at how the bartenders
24:11are vibing in the room. How are they? I don't mean the walking part, just in general. Are
24:16they like, I'll be right with you. Are they stressed? Are they constantly turning their
24:19back on you? Are they bending down? Are they reaching high and straining? How is that supposed
24:24to translate into this smooth, fun, energized, or whatever it needs to be experienced with the
24:30guest? If like, I can't like stretch and bend and reach and bump my knees into stuff and cut my
24:36clothes and then spin around and be like, so anyway, how are you? You know, it should be one,
24:41you should be able to flow. So we call it the dance behind the bar. I don't know what you
24:45call it on
24:45the line, but we always called it the dance. And that's when you drop into flow state and everything
24:49just happens because you're set up well. And if you don't see that as a business owner, you should be
24:54really nervous because if I'm not in flow state, I'm not working as quickly, as smoothly. I'm not
25:00enjoying it. And if I'm a bartender in today's age and I'm not moving fast and I'm not enjoying it,
25:07that means I'm not making money and I'm not happy, which means I'm quitting and going somewhere where
25:11I will be. So if you need to be able to keep that quarterly turnover down and retain staff, like
25:16you've
25:17had your bartender for 20 years who you promoted, you know, that's most people probably like,
25:21oh my God, I wish I could do that. Well, don't put them in a work environment. That's a nightmare
25:26to work behind. Ask your bartender what's wrong with your bar before you ask your equipment
25:31dealer, ask your bartender what they need to succeed before you ask your CFO or a bank,
25:39find out what's missing, what's wrong, what could be better from the people that do it every day.
25:45So that's what I look for when I walk in as I look for basically how are the bartenders moving
25:49and
25:50working and what are the quick things I can see that kind of signal there's an issue.
25:55What, if you could say one paragraph about the unsung hero, the barback,
26:05what would that paragraph be?
26:08How'd he wrote it? It's in the book.
26:11The barback is the eyes, the ears, and the backbone, the lifeblood of the restaurant.
26:18Because the bar can tube the kitchen just as much as the kitchen can tube the bar. If you can't
26:23get a
26:23drink, your meal's ruined. Your experience is ruined. And you can't get a drink if you can't
26:29get an ice cube or a straw or a backup bottle of vodka or cold beer. And a barback is
26:36the one that
26:36handles that and does it. The bartender cannot do it, should not do it. And that's why we use this.
26:41It's our version of the brigade. That's our departmental division. And they are the unsung
26:47heroes because every bartender out there that's had a great, every bartender out there knows the
26:52first and last name 20 years later and probably is still in touch with their favorite barback ever.
26:57I can tell you the names of both of the two best I ever had. So can my girlfriend. Because
27:02they're so
27:03valuable. Because you don't have to tell them what to do. They know and they're ahead of you. This is
27:08the move. And if there's any ex-bartenders watching, they'll know this instantly. This
27:12is it right here. It's this. It's the no-look empty bottle pass back. You open your hand. The
27:18barback takes the empty and puts the pour-spouted replacement in your hand and you finish your
27:24pour. Those days are kind of ridden off into the sunset. But that's when you have a barback who
27:31you're like, we're going to make money tonight and we're going to have a good time.
27:34Is it harder opening a bar that was busy the night before or closing a busy bar?
27:44Man. I mean, I don't know. Probably I get scheduled to double clopin' anyway, so I'd be
27:48doing both. I think it's, I don't know, towards the end of my career, the places I worked were very
27:56busy and we all did the same thing. We always paid dish and barbacks. We tipped them extra to help
28:00us do
28:01a lot of the closing. So I didn't have this like struggling, like, oh, I got to close. It's like,
28:06I just got to clean my well and here's an extra 40 or 60 bucks from every bartender, pull the
28:11mats and
28:11do everything else. I think it depends on who closed the night before for the opening question. Like
28:15opening can be great if the closer was good, but if the closer hosed you and had a couple of
28:20beers and
28:20left everything sticky and unstocked, then you walk in and you're like, fuck.
28:24Some of the most popular content on the internet is the opener versus the closer. And that's just
28:30not just in the bar aspect, but the restaurant aspect, because everyone's got an opinion that
28:35someone's job is harder than the other person's. I got to tell you a quick story. It's funny. I was
28:40maybe 25 or something, 24, and I got a job at the best bar in Syracuse. Place was called The
28:46Crown at
28:46the time, right where the, at the dome, when the game lets out, the train drops you right in front
28:50of
28:50this place. And, uh, I got very few shifts. So they gave me the day shift. Now back up, I
28:56had been
28:56working in college dives and where things are breaking all the time. And I had a sink that had
29:02a leak and the leak, um, sprayed water right at my crotch. So I developed this automatic. As soon as
29:09I turned the sink on, I had this like, this like, you know, like Neo from the matrix move to
29:13not get
29:14water on my crotch. I was used to that. So anyway, I go into this bar, the crown to open
29:18and the, you know,
29:18it's my first shift and I'm all excited. And I go in and I'm just starting to check the coolers
29:23and I
29:23pull a cooler door open and I just look at the stock and then I see something like, what's that?
29:27And on the other cooler door next to it, there was a whole glass pitcher of bar snacks tipped so
29:33that
29:33if I opened that door, they would have spilled all over the bar. And I went, Oh, we got jokes.
29:38Okay.
29:39I got a new guy. I got it. So that didn't spill and I pulled it out. The next thing
29:44is the, uh,
29:45I'd want to turn the water on and it started to spray. I'm like, Oh, my, my body was like,
29:50we got this. So I did the little move. They'd scotch taped the sink so that it would spray on
29:55my crotch. Like, like just for what, and they'd booby trapped the whole bar. But it was like,
30:01it was like funny because I was like, it, none of it worked. Cause I just happened to work in
30:04so
30:04many crappy places and was so used to being screwed by the closer. But the, uh, the opening and closing
30:10stuff, you know, if you don't know how to set up your bar, you make that like, it's not funny.
30:17It's becomes, it's really bad for everyone. Like where, like, think about it. Like kitchens have
30:21whole prep areas, right? You don't prep on the line. You don't prep on the flat top. You have a
30:28whole prep area. Where do bars prep on the bar top? Cause we don't have rooms. We don't have prep
30:33rooms and we don't have all this stuff. It's like, ah, just there's one little 24 inch cabinet. Just put
30:38all your shit in there. That's fine. We don't get our own walk-in coolers. And so these are all
30:43the
30:43things missing from bar design that like, it stops being funny when you're the one that has to do all
30:48that work every morning and every night, you know, it's amazing. Um, where's the best place for people
30:54to keep in touch with you? How can they buy the book? Um, how can they keep in touch with
30:58you
30:58online? I mean, bar magic.com. I've been there since 1997. That's easy. I'm also Tobin Ellis design on
31:04Instagram and you can just go to Amazon and type in bar design essentials. And it's the subtitle that
31:10I I'm most proud of. And I didn't come up with it. Who came up with it? How to design
31:16bars that work
31:17for everyone, how to design bars that work for everyone, the architect, the ID, the owner, the
31:22investor, the bartender, the bar back, the chef, the servers, the guest, everyone, that's the perspective.
31:27So if you're one of those people, uh, hopefully there's something in there that, um, is interesting,
31:33uh, and helpful, or just, um, just like, why didn't someone tell me this 20 years ago? I could
31:40have saved so much money when we were doing that renovation. If I just knew that that's hopefully
31:45it before I let you go, I'm going to ask you about your personal tech stack, Android or iPhone,
31:51iPhone. What version? I have no idea. I'm one, I'm one behind. I'll just tell you this.
31:58I've been on Apple. I, I had a Franklin two in 1979. I used to program in four languages. So
32:05I've been Apple my whole life. Uh, what carrier, what carrier are you on? Uh, I've got Verizon and
32:12T-Mobile. I've got both. I've got T-Mobile for the phone and Verizon for in New York. Okay. Fair
32:18enough. Uh, phone calls or text messages. Do you prefer, do you prefer email and then text
32:26if it has to be, if it's personal phone or in person, do you FaceTime anybody? Just my mom,
32:33just your mom. Um, do you leave voicemails? Almost never. Uh, it's if somebody, if somebody
32:42is not replying to everything else, then I'll punish him with a voicemail and I'll, and I'll
32:49make it as long. I'll get a cup of coffee. All right. Crack the knuckles. So, you know,
32:54that thing that I, we've been talking about for the last month and that submission set done,
33:03who in the entire design process, when you're talking about architects construction, who is
33:09the most difficult to work with? The unprepared unprepared. That's a good one. It's not one.
33:20It's never one position. I'm, I never would name in shame, but a great architect is so valuable,
33:25but you know, it's the unprepared or the missing. The hardest person to work with is the PM. That's,
33:30that wasn't pulled into the project. When someone tries to renovate or build without a project manager
33:35who has construction experience, I don't mean the GC. I don't mean the architect necessarily. I mean,
33:40a dedicated PM that's the hardest because nobody can court. The coordination is terrible. It's
33:46frustrating and it's repetitive. So the missing PM is probably the hardest person to work with.
33:51Fair enough. Um, how do you listen to music? Which what app?
33:55Uh, Spotify and Sonos. And then every once in a blue moon, uh, I, I make a lot of trips
34:02to
34:03listening bars to sit and listen to vinyl. Oh, cool. Uh, chat GPT, Claude, Gemini or perplexity.
34:11I use chat and Claude and Google AI daily. I also use about three other AI pro writing aid is
34:18probably
34:18the best writing AI. It's probably the best AI I use. Um, chat GPT is like a really enthusiastic
34:26uh, seven year old that wants to get hired at your company and will never not try to get you
34:31on the
34:31back. Usually completely wrong, but sometimes they stumble you into areas that you couldn't find on
34:38your own. So, you know, uh, what is the best app for a bartender listening to this?
34:45The best app? Yeah.
34:52I don't have an answer for that because I don't think bartending is about apps. I think bartending
34:58is about, it's, it's, it's one of the last professions that's about living in the real
35:04world and actually doing the job. I don't think I get asked this all the time. What's your favorite
35:08app for running, managing a bar? I'm like, if you don't understand costs, no app is going to save you.
35:13Yep. Um, doesn't mean there isn't great tech out there. There's a bunch, but, um, yeah,
35:18I don't have a good one for that. I have some friends that are going to blow up my phone
35:20and
35:20be like, dude, I, my app, my app, I know, but I know one app, one app behind the bar.
35:27I'd say
35:27that a book is a better, if you could have one quality in a bartender, what would that one quality
35:34be? Empathy. Empathy. Yeah. Okay. We're going to leave it at empathy. Tobin Ellis. The book is
35:42bar design essentials. Uh, you're a rock star. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for
35:47sharing all your knowledge. Tobin Ellis design on Instagram and, um, bar magic.com Tobin. Thank you
35:55so much. If you guys want to reach out to me, I'm weirdly available at Sean P. Welch. Instagram's
36:00the fastest, but Tobin can't wait to see you again, man. Keep doing the great work. Um,
36:04hospitality needs you all over the globe. Um, happy to see you putting a dedication and giving
36:10back to the industry the way you are. Appreciate you. Appreciate it, Sean. Thanks for everything
36:14you've done. Give me this opportunity in the platform and I cannot wait to, uh, roll through
36:18Riverside at some point and, uh, have some barbecue. Let's go. We'll see you in San Diego. My man.
36:23Right on. Let's happen. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. If you've made it this
36:31long, you are part of the community. You're part of the tribe. We can't do this alone. We
36:35started, no one was listening. Now we have a community of digital hospitality leaders all
36:40over the globe. Please check out our new series called restaurant technology, sub stack. It's
36:45a sub stack newsletter. It's free. It's some of our deep work on the best technology for restaurants.
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37:01want to work with us, go to eat the show.media. We show up all over the United States, some
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37:15available. Stay curious, get involved. Don't be afraid to ask for help. We'll catch you
37:19next episode.
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