Thirteen Ways to Prevent Theft Behind the Bar

For new restaurateurs, the bar is one of the most vulnerable areas to theft. This is particularly true if you have a booming bar business and a strong bartender. You might not feel the pain of constant theft and skimming, such as a free drink to the bartender's friends here and there, or stealing from the cash register.

Complicating the matter is that sometimes the most dangerous bartenders are the best and brightest. Behind the bar is a place where individual talent and charm can be measured in hard cash, and a common and woeful tale is the stellar bartender with a huge following of customers, who is caught stealing from the owners. In that case, even an honest but average bartender might not be able to match the end-of-the-night profits turned in by the thief. Nevertheless, your bar should be a cash cow in your operation, and you should reap every penny of profit that you earn. You are always better off hiring for attitude (and honesty) and training for skill.

Have you heard of the term "shrinkage"? To the uninitiated, it may sound harmless, but just the thought of it is enough to make seasoned beverage managers wince and bar owners shudder. Shrinkage -- or the liquor that is lost due to waste, spillage and theft -- can chew up 20 percent to 30 percent of the bottom line. Bevinco (a liquor inventory control service, with 100 franchises throughout the United States and Canada) auditors have determined that the average shrinkage is actually 23 percent on liquor and draft beer, about 10 percent on wine and 2 percent on bottled beer. That's a lot of money. It could mean your profits for the year, particularly in a startup enterprise. Eliminating shrinkage can mean the difference between financial success and failure.

Theft alone is an insidious source of losses. Opportunities are rife for theft behind a bar. Bartenders are often working without direct supervision. They steal from the bar and its customers because it's easily accomplished, hard to detect, and extremely difficult to prevent on an ongoing basis. The temptations posed by constantly handling large sums of cash and dealing with a liquid inventory can often prove overwhelming. At some point, most bartenders contemplate stealing cash, giving out free drinks, or any one of a multitude of transgressions. Effectively limiting internal theft behind the majority of bars is no easy task, and eliminating it is unrealistic.

But it's essential to formulate and put in place an operational strategy to contain the problem. To that end, here are practical recommendations on how to reduce your vulnerability to theft.