Building A Barroom-Seeking Ideas And Adv
JerraldHayes
| Posted in General Discussion on
I’ve got a client who has asked us to design and build a bar for his basement adjacent to his poolroom to be patterned after a NYC or Chicago type speakeasy. I was wondering what ideas you all might have in the way of reference web sites and supplier catalogs for instance for bar equipment and other materials. Any other ideas let’s say on lighting and other decoration that I should check out feel free to jump in and say anything. The only thing set in stone right now is the basic material for the woodwork which they want to be mahogany.
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“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Replies
Jerrald:
My experience is limited to Philly "taprooms", and if I remember correctly, you need to design lots of "spread out flat on your face" space. I recall hexagonal black & white tiles covering my entire field of vision. Those brass bars about 6" off the floor really help in getting to the standing position.
Seriously, this project calls for some hands on investigation. Is the client wealthy enough to send you (or me) on a fact-finding tour of Chicago or NYC?
If not do you live near a metropolitan area? Go to the old neighborhoods and look for the seedy unimproved places. There's a gold mine of classic bar decor to scarf up.
Alternately, you can just duplicate the bar from the TV show Cheers.
Hope you get some real answers to your question!
C
C- thanks for the start. We have all those same black and white tiles up here in NY. I'm a suburbanite now but my twenties were spent fastened to the bars in McSorleys, The Olde Town Bar, Chumleys and two places just around the corner from where I lived on Jones Street down in the Village who's names escape me right now. I plan to take a trip back down to all of those places and check out some others I'm thinking of too.
I've actually designed and or installed several bar interiors over the years for both real commercial bars and restaurants and for theatrical productions too. Would love to do a real bar somewhere based on William Saroyan's play Time of Your Life. Had a real blast with it twice during my theatre design career stage.
The real trouble is now I can't recall where we used to get any of the stuff we used to use. The only manufacturer/supplier that sticks in my mind is Central/Shipee which we used to get a lot of brass and drapery fabric from. To that end I probably wouldn't even use them anymore since I'm closely associated with an architectural metals shop so may the one thing I do have positive source leads on is the brass and the fitting that goes with it.
What I thinking is there have to be suppliers out there for things like glass racks sinks bar equipment etc. and so far this afternoon I haven't been able to find much of anything searching the web. I stopped drinking something like 15 years ago so I'm no longer spending much time at all around bars pubs and taverns ( did way too much research back in the seventies) but I've got to believe that there are lots of experts on this kind of stuff still hanging around in these here forums.
"Do not go where the path may lead, go
instead where there is no path and
leave a trail."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hi there from the windy city of Chicago. Can't help but chime in on this one. One of the reasons being that I live right down the street from one of Al Capone's old haunts, The Green Mill Jazz club. I think there are a couple other joints around here that he used to hang out in that are still serving.
As for suppliers you might want to check out a company called baer supply company. baerco.com (don't know how to insert a link so you'll have to type it in) They are in the northeast as well as here in the midwest.
Best of luck to ya.
Jerrald- try changing your search to restaurant equipment for better results. Most restaurant suppliers carry everything for the bar, too. I get catalogs from Mid-Central frequently. If I see any high-end bar catalogs come through the mail in the next few weeks, I'll send you an e-mail.
...up north attitude...
Unfortunately, these great old haunts continue to be on the endangered species list. You may find some fixtures at closeouts or local recyclers.
Restaurant supply outfits would probably be worth a look too.
'Been moving through the net this evening using search strings like architectural
restaurant bar supplies and I think I may just be starting to get somewhere.
I haven't sorted through or looked into the links that I found very deeply but
I'll get to that with time. Would like to find some small refrigerator units that
I could possibly use in the bar itself and I haven't run them down yet but I'm
sure there out there.
"Do not go where the path may lead, go
instead where there is no path and
leave a trail."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Try Compact Appliance. No home bar would be complete without a frig, icemaker and 'wine grotto'...
...up north attitude...
Here's some input on fixtures:
If he drinks beer from bottles or cans, get a slide top bottle cooler from True mfg. in St. Louis. Slide tops are a little harder to stock, but they are easier to serve from.(Nice and cold and even a small 36" unit holds a BUNCH O SUDS)
If he drinks beer from a keg, get a True or Perlick tapper.
If he does both, get a combo unit.
Use a small "reach-in" fridge for the other goods
If he likes frosty mugs a mug cooler is different from a bottle cooler; higher humidity to frost the glasses.
Overhead glass racks look pretty, but if the glassware is not frequently cycled it gets pretty dirty up there.
A three basin SS sink behind the bar and one of those motorized pub-scrub glass cleaners makes glass cleaning kinda fun. Wash, dunk, dunk-Wash, dunk, dunk (the two dunks are treated rinse water and regular water) Then set the glasses on the SS drain board end on one of those rubber mats that look like expanded metal to air dry.
If you want pourers on your bottles, get the ones with the little screens in them. Some spirits attract bugs. Bars are dimly lit for many reasons . . .
Whirlpool and Sub Zero make ice makers that function like commercial units-the water flows over a cold plate to slowly form very clear and pure ice. Get one of these! The small clear cubes are (i belive) relatively mineral free and (oddly enough) soda does not fiz up as much when poured into a glass of this ice. Also, their bins are usually not insulated-that prevents the massive iceberg from forming inside. The Whirlpool is cheaper (obviously), but I have seen both models and can tell little difference.
Heavy duty bar blenders really do a better job than home models on frozen drinks
One mre thought-many people think that they want a stand behind bar with stools, but later realize that they don't really use it that way (I guess the novelty of being stuck behind the bar wears off) I have seen some very nice bars that were "walk up and serve your self" kind of bars that worked out really well. Think a notch or two up from a small wet bar . .
That's all I can think of for now.
Please post pics!
Steelkilt Lives!
http://www.certainlywoodinc.com/index2.ivnu
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
If your client is "high end", then check out these folks to http://www.whbars.com/ourbars.htm.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Wow, thanks for the great input everybody.
Cami, the wine storage equipment on that Compact
Appliance site you gave me was exactly what I was looking for that I was
really struggling to find.
Jim I used your list when discussing the project today and my client knowing
I stopped drinking 15 years ago was surprised I knew so much about bar equipment
( until I told him how I came by the information and he was even surprised by
that, thanks). I found The True Manufacturing equipment on the Kegworld
site and that was a great find in and of itself too.
Phill, thanks for the great bar sites. Two of the restaurants we had done interior
work for years ago had bars fabricated and installed by and I was very impressed at the time. I knew they were out there
but for the life of me I could not remember their name anymore so I had no idea
where to find them. I had the name Currier & Ives stuck in my head and couldn't
get past it to recall the Wallace & Hinz name. Weird how that happens. Anyway
thanks for uncovering them for me again. We are going to be fabricating this
bar and as I was beginning to think about what I wanted to do I was thinking
back to the bars I had seen them do years ago. That's a pretty impressive operation
they have too.
Hey Phill remember back in the Status
discussion a month or so ago where you brought Edward Tufte's "The Visual
Display of Quantitative Information" & Charles Joseph Minard to my
attention? I then vaguely recalled getting something about the book and Minards
chart in the mail once upon a time. Well, I got that mailing again a week and
a half ago and it's for a one-day course being given by Tufte himself on Presenting
Data & Information. I signed up for one of the sessions in late July.
I went out and bought both "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information"
and "Pictures of Nouns" a few weeks after you originally brought them
to my attention. And after thinking about Minard's chart and what I learned
from "Pictures of Nouns" I am even more convinced that the Prospero
interface is better than the old WebX one and have a even greater list of the
reasons I feel that way. Top of the list, thanks to those books you recommended,
is I think the Prospero system gives you the bigger picture both bigger
and faster than the old WebX system. Yup, I still think the outrage at
the switch here was due more to some of the long time BreakTimers difficulty
in dealing with the Dynamics of Change itself than to any inherent or intrinsic
advantages of the software of either company's systems.
It's unfortunate that many contributors choose to leave or gave up and it's
really unfortunate that the bulk of the archives are gone too but I think things
are going along pretty well right now and the site seems to be growing again
and I'm enjoying reading some of the new contributors I've seen emerge.
I was disappointed that my Seeking
Railing Fabrication Ideas topic went virtually nowhere but hey, c'est
la vie. It might have gone nowhere on the old system too. The response to this
topic has been very helpful so far and I think that’s great.
I'll post photos of the space the barroom is being planned for maybe tomorrow
and anyone who wants to can throw out any other ideas they might have. Thanks
again everybody.
"Do not go where the path may lead, go
instead where there is no path and
leave a trail."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I'm glad the book recommendation sparked some interest. Regarding your comments on this site: that's a bankrupt analogy, I just saw your thread on railing for the first time - that's one of the problems you have with this site, I often miss topics, or new postings to topics, completely because they somehow get skipped in the "with new messages" list.
.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Edited 6/15/2002 1:02:10 PM ET by Phill Giles
One thing that is worth mentioning, DO NOT put a glass ware rack over the ice machine. Somebody breaks a glass over it, the ice machine must be emptied and cleaned before it is safe to use again.
One of the bars I bounced at used horse troughs for beer coolers, they had wire racks that kept the bottles up towards the top, were filled with ice, and had a small pump recirculating the melted ice water through the trough, they advertised it as the coldest beer in town. TCW Specialists in Custom Remodeling.
1) Find a bar you like. Really get to know the place before you write off an establishment. Try different perspectives like swinging from the chandelier and prone. Try different combinations like drunk with floozie - drunk without floozie , sober sitting - drunk with biker kicking head. Be creative. Take your time. Two or three years per bar will give you a good base line for comparison.
2) When you find one that fits, or fails to kick you out after 3 years, take notes of all vital statistics. Helpful hint: Many police department photograph felony crime scenes and will provide copies for a nominal price, 3 to 5 years with time off for good behavior being about average. Take these figures home and copy them.
3) Enjoy the feeling of a job well done and any of the better 12 step programs.
Edit spelling 06/13/02
Edited 6/13/2002 11:45:45 PM ET by 4LORN1