How to Find and Keep Your Best Bar Customers
A small group of regulars usually accounts for a large share of a bar's sales. Here is how to find out who they are, notice when one stops coming, and bring them back.
Ask a bar or restaurant owner who their best customers are and you will get a list of names. Ask how much each one spent last quarter, or which of them has not been in for a month, and the list gets shorter.
That gap matters. Winning back a regular who drifted away is usually cheaper than finding a new guest, and you can only do it if you know they left.
Regulars are found in tabs, not in memory
Staff remember the guests who talk the most. The guests who spend the most are not always the same people. The couple who come in every Thursday, order dinner and two rounds, and leave quietly can be worth more in a year than the loudest seat at the bar. In a restaurant it is the family at the same table twice a month, or the office that comes for lunch every Friday.
Three numbers tell you who your regulars really are:
- Visits: how many times they have been in.
- Spend: what they have spent in total.
- Last visit: how long it has been.
A paper tab or an anonymous card swipe gives you none of these. You need tabs tied to a person.
In Toadee, every guest who opens a tab from their account appears on the Customers page in the admin portal with their last visit, tab count and lifetime spend. You do nothing to build the list. It fills in as people order.
Sort your guests into three groups
You do not need a marketing plan. You need to know which of three groups a guest is in.
| Group | How to spot them | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Regulars | Many tabs, recent last visit | Recognise them. Make sure staff know their names |
| Promising | Two or three tabs in the last month or so | Give them a reason to come back once more |
| Lapsed | Used to come in, last visit 30 days ago or more | Reach out before they forget you |
The third group is where most bars lose money without seeing it. Nobody complains when they stop coming. They just pick another place.
Notice who stopped coming
On the Customers page you can filter by how long a guest has been away: 30, 60 or 90 days and more. Check it once a month.
Look at the lapsed guests with the highest lifetime spend first. A regular who has been gone 30 days may only have been travelling. One who has been gone 60 has probably found another bar. The earlier you act, the better the odds.
Before you send anything, ask your staff. If three lapsed regulars all stopped after the same week, something happened: a price change, a new closing time, a bartender who left. That is worth more to know than any single guest is worth to win back.
Bring them back with something small
The simplest tool is a free drink with a note.
From the Customers page you can send a comp, which is a credit for a free item. You can add a short note, limit it to a category such as draft beer, and set an expiry date. The guest is notified, and the next time they open a tab at your venue they can apply it to an eligible item.
A few things make a comp work:
- Write the note yourself. "We've missed you on Thursdays" does more than the drink does.
- Set an expiry. Two or three weeks gives the guest a reason to come soon.
- Limit the category. A comp for a draft beer, an appetizer or a dessert keeps your cost known.
- Keep it rare. Toadee caps comps at two per guest every 90 days. That is a sensible limit anyway. A guest who gets a free drink every visit stops seeing it as a gift.
Comps are also the right tool in the other direction. When a regular hits a milestone, or a table had a bad night because the kitchen was backed up, staff can send a comp from that guest's tab in the Service App.
Read what your regulars order
Knowing who your best guests are is half of it. The other half is knowing what they come for.
Toadee's sales reports show your top items, revenue by category, and traffic by hour. Read them with your regulars in mind:
- If your top sellers are three craft drafts, rotating the taps is a bigger decision than it looks.
- If one category brings in most of the revenue, protect it before you add something new.
- If your busiest hour is earlier than you assumed, your regulars may be an after-work crowd, and a late-night promotion will miss them.
- If two dishes account for most of your food sales, they are why people come. Think hard before taking either off the menu.
One limit to be clear about: this is information about behaviour. It tells you who visits, how often, and what they buy. It does not tell you a guest's age or interests, and you do not need those to run a good bar or restaurant. What a guest does at your venue is a better guide than who they are on paper.
A monthly routine
- Open the Customers page and filter for guests away 30 days or more.
- Sort by lifetime spend and pick the top ten.
- Ask staff whether anything explains the absences.
- Send each one a comp with a personal note and an expiry date.
- Next month, check which of them came back.
It takes about half an hour, and it is aimed at the people most likely to return.
The Customers page and comps are included on every Toadee plan, including Free. Sales reports are on Basic and up. Register your venue to start building your list, or read how to fill a slow night for the other side: bringing new guests in.
More from the blog
- Bar Staff Scheduling: How to Build a Weekly Schedule That Holds A schedule falls apart when it is rebuilt from memory every week. Here is a repeatable way to schedule bar staff, from standard shifts to checking what really happened.
- Why Faster Bar Service Means More Revenue On a busy night your sales are limited by how fast staff can serve, not by how many guests want a drink. Here is where the time goes, and how to get it back for staff and managers.
- How to Ban a Problem Customer From Your Bar, and Make It Stick One guest who harasses staff or starts fights costs more than their tab is worth. Here is when to ban someone, how to do it fairly, and how to make sure every shift knows.