Hey, Rick Uzubell again from Cabaret Design Group, answering the question,
"How Do You Re-Design A Commercial Bar?"
How you design a bar? Discover the tips for
systematically measuring existing bars and developing ideas for redesigning a
commercial bar and back bar.
Here again is the "As-Built" plan that I created in preparation of the bar
redesign, which depicts the shape of the existing bar, which we reviewed in Part 1
of the series. I always recommend developing a record of existing
conditions for every bar design and this one had particular significance. During
my initial site visit, I immediately noticed that the existing bar appeared
to have a matchbook appearance -- the lobes were nearly identical in size and
appeared to be symmetrical about the bar's vertical centerline. This suggested
that a simple redesign solution might be attainable; however, I also realized early-on
that the existing plumbing drains and electrical wiring could present
complications in achieving that. As shown in these photos, the sheer quantity of
utilities posed a challenge.
The construction of this particular building was slab-on-grade,
so utility relocation would have been very costly; therefore, the new bar design
would also be required to encapsulate the existing utilities. Most importantly,
however, I needed to verify the exact location of all utilities before
proceeding to the design process and this particular bar posed a formidable
hurdle. How does one locate utilities in a circular bar? Unless you own a 'total
station GPS system,' you have to get creative. After measuring countless
commercial buildings, over the years, what I've developed is the next best thing:
create your own 2-axis measuring system. Nearly every commercial building
has ceramic tile floors and this becomes built-in "graph paper." In other words,
because we know the distance from a known point to this floor drain, we can
then set up our grid so that we can get the horizontal and vertical distance to
each other point from this point, so this is how the 2-axis system is set-up.
You either do it through the flooring grid or by snapping chalk lines. A word of caution:
always measure twice!
As I mentioned earlier, my goal was to use the symmetry of the existing bar to
develop a symmetrical, multi-sided bar. Realizing that I had constraints at both
ends of the bar, my first step was to develop a rough draft, which you see here.
Realizing that the center connecting section would likely be retained, I focused my
effort on drawing a concept on the left end and then copied, flipped and pasted
the bar to the other, to test my hypothesis. After several iterations,
you'll notice that the right end of the bar is very similar to the left and both
are reasonably within the envelope of the existing bar tops as shown here,
which I'll now unmask. The objects shown in green, here and here, are expendable,
so these won't necessarily be part of the final design. Next, I created a first
draft of the new bar by drawing the new countertops and overlaying them over the
existing, which you''ll see here. Although the bottom legs of the bar on
each side aren't exact -- here and here -- this is entirely acceptable to me. The
bar is, indeed, symmetrical about its vertical axis, shown here. A quick
equipment layout of each side confirms that we're on the right track. A gate was
drawn on each side of the bar for convenient personnel access. The aisle
clearance of 52 1/8 inches at the right end -- as shown here -- is well within
the accepted range of 48 - 60 inches. The bartender aisle clearances of 78
inches within each station -- here and here -- are a bit excessive, but the majority of
the bartender's movements have been designed to be primarily side-to-side, so
they'll be stationed on one side of the bar anyway. Besides, if I had chosen to
minimize these aisles we wouldn't have adequate aisles around the island backbar.
Lastly, I designed each station to have about eight foot of speed rails, which is
an ideal quantity. Also included is a preliminary concept for the center back
bar that will house the draft beer towers. Although this will likely require
more space, given the flexibility to maneuver the center connecting section
of the bar leads me to believe that this portion of the bar design should flow
uneventfully. We'll address this issue in Part 3 of this series.