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www.cheersonline.com 45 March/April 2017 • glass racks help us utilize our shelves as much as we can." Kevin Bratt, concept beverage director for Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab, which operates locations Chicago, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., agrees. Shelving units installed in open areas will make the best use of space, he notes. 3) CREATE SEPARATE AND IDENTICAL STATIONS. Each bartender at Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab is assigned to a station at the beginning of each shift. He or she is responsible for serving a certain number of guests at the bar as well as in the dining room. The stations are stocked with everything bartenders need, says Bratt. Swain keeps a maximum of three bartenders working at the same time, along with two bar backs. "Having a designated station for each person keeps everything running smoothly without people tripping over each other," he says. At PCH, an 82-seat craft cocktail bar in San Francisco that sells about 1,800 a week, dozens of bottles and jars of tinctures, bitters and infusions line the back bar. That makes daily set-up pretty intense, says general manager/partner Kevin Diedrich, so organization is key. "Each one of our stations is exactly identical to the next. That way, each bartender can hop into any of the stations and continue to work no matter what side of the bar they are on," Diedrich explains. Juices, bitters and dashers are always on the right side of the well, while syrups ard on the left, all organized by cocktails and volume. "All this is mapped out a sort of 'map' that is laminated and stored behind the bar [so] whoever is setting up the bar has the same setup every single day." Symmetry is indeed key, says Shel Bourdon, director of bars for Two Roads Hospitality, a lifestyle hotel management company. If a bar has more than one well, each should be set identically, with everything from cheater bottles to garnishes. "It's all about muscle memory," she notes. "Shelving and glass racks are your best friends." — Niki Kotantoulas, beverage director for the restaurant Manuela in Los Angeles Bourbon Steak in Washington, D.C., recently installed a third well in its bar to keep up the pace and streamline the process.