Being flexible in a shifting landscape.

Most of us (I’m talking about people who work or have worked in the hospitality industry), have seen it. We’ve stood behind the bar cleaning, we’ve sat at Table 4 refilling salt and pepper shakers, we’ve taken time to re-read the laminated fire safety sheet, again. Dead time. No guests. It’s a natural part of the cycle of a venue, just as much as rush times are. 

These dead times though, are expensive.

Bars and restaurants closed for 12 hours a day, hotel breakfast halls busy for three hours in the morning, empty for the other 21 hours of the day, hotel bars busy for pre-dinners and nightcaps, but tumbleweeds otherwise. COVID has brutally exposed the rigidity of most venues and this should force a re-think about how we frame our venues going forward. 

I was hit by an article written by Bill Barnett, Managing Director at C9 Hotelworks, who wrote in June ‘...these days I look to tell clients to deconstruct spaces, they can shift use for lunch or dinner and alternate uses. Learn from retail, where space planning can be so much more flexible’.

For us, who work with designing bars, we’re hyper aware of how central the bar is in defining the capability and flexibility of a space. Even before COVID hit, decimating operating hours and forcing savvy, experienced operators to pivot quickly, we collaborated with a good number of venues who had flexibility of space at the forefront of their minds. 

Cocktail focused bars who wanted to draw people in during the day to take advantage of their great coffee, free wifi and bangin’ playlists and needed extra laptop space at the bar for the officeless worker crowd. Hotels who saw value in having one space for breakfast and bar, but retaining the distinct atmosphere that make both a success. Flexibility is a piece of furniture that can morph from buffet bench to bar station to a worktop to a hot desk. 

Probably the most exciting example of this concept of flexibility is a collaboration we were involved in with Monica Berg and Alex Kratena for their bar in Old Street, London, Tayer + Elementary. 

Monica and Alex worked on the idea of a fully flexible work station for 2 years before they came to us to make their concept into a living breathing piece. Essentially the Tayer station offers those working at it the ability to fully transform their workspace to fit their preferences, while at the same time allowing the flexibility to accommodate what is happening that night in the bar. The genius is in the hexagons. They can be flipped to make one complete, plumbed, work top or serving table or selectively turned to create isolated storage for bottles, tools and garnish, or removed all together to make neutral space for ice, equipment, whatever. 

An evening of Oysters on ice and Champagne? No problem. 

Tasting presentations with snacks? Easy. 

Prep table? Yep. 

A left handed, 7ft giant? The perfect work station. 

A place to sit and do stocktake in the mornings? Easy.

The Tayer Series by Behind Bars is a fully flexible workspace that allows complete freedom to shift function, and this opens up a huge opportunity to unlock the potential of spaces that already have a lot of expertise and money invested in them. 

And this is just one example of what’s already available. We as bar designers are totally rethinking functionality and flexibility of our pieces.

COVID has hit hard for sure.  But it also offers an opportunity for us to rethink, space, function and concept. 

For many, this rethink and re-adjustment will be the way they come out the other side. 

Written by: Sam Millin