Shorter bar queues without more staff. The levers at a glance.
The queue grows as soon as more orders come in than your bar can handle. A little more speed shortens it a lot.
In short
At peak times, your bar has to handle more than comes in.
You shorten the queue at the bar without more staff by reducing the work per order, separating ordering and payment from preparation, and keeping every station busy all the time. Even a few more orders per hour make a big difference, because every missing minute adds up during the rush.
The 10 levers
What makes the queue at the bar shorter
Sorted by effort. Each lever shows which part of the wait it tackles: ordering and payment, preparation, pickup, or how long the wait feels.
Right away no cost, from your next night
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01
A rush menu for peak times
At peak times, a shorter menu with drinks that are quick to make. Guests decide faster, and your team reaches for specialty bottles less often. Elaborate drinks are available before and after the rush.
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02
Prepare before the rush
Top up the ice, set out glasses, cut garnishes, check kegs and fridges. Every task done beforehand is one less during the rush.
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03
Make identical drinks together
Four gin and tonics in one go are faster than two rounds of two: glass, ice and bottle once instead of twice. Experienced bartenders do this automatically. Temporary staff often lack a view of the next orders.
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04
Faster payment
A card terminal at every station, contactless payment and, for cash, prices that need little change. Whoever is taking payment isn’t making drinks.
With some planning roles, stations and layout
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05
Separate ordering, preparation and pickup
At peak times, one person takes orders and payment while the others only make drinks. That way nobody jumps between three tasks.
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06
Stations and an express counter
Beer and soft drinks at one station, cocktails at another, food in the kitchen. An express counter just for quick drinks takes guests with simple orders out of the queue in front of the cocktails.
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07
Sort out layout, paths and the queue
Everything a station needs is within reach, and nobody crosses paths. The queue is clearly guided, with the menu and prices easy to see in front of it. At events, an extra serving point opens for the peak.
With a digital ordering system guests order on their phones
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08
Order and pay via QR code
Guests order and pay on their phones from where they are, instead of in the queue. Taking payment at the bar disappears, and your team only makes drinks. This helps if ordering and payment are your bottleneck. If preparation is, the queue simply moves to the pickup point.
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09
Let the system plan the work at the bar
Most ordering systems show one ticket after another. skippr plans the work instead: it batches identical drinks from several orders, suggests making upcoming ones ahead and moves up orders that a free station can serve right away. In initial tests, the same bar handled up to 60% more orders per hour this way.*
How skippr plans the work -
10
Pick up when it’s ready
If guests get a message as soon as their order is ready, they wait at their table or with friends instead of at the bar. The wait stays the same, but the queue in front of the bar disappears and waiting feels shorter.
Why this happens
The queue grows as long as more comes in than goes out.
Every order your bar can’t handle at peak times waits for the next minute. In the example, 30 orders are waiting after two hours, and it takes another two hours for the queue to clear. With 20% more speed, there are at most six, and the queue is gone less than a quarter of an hour after the peak.
- Bar handles 60 per hour: up to 30 orders in the queue, about 30 min wait
- 72 per hour (+20%): up to 6 orders, about 5 min
Orders in the queue
Rush: 75 per hour
after: 45 per hour
How to find your bottleneck
Three numbers from a normal night are enough to see which lever helps you most.
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1
Speed at peak
How many orders does your bar handle in the busiest hour? Your sales report by hour shows it.
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2
Length of the queue
At peak times, count how many guests are waiting every 15 minutes. If the number keeps growing, more is coming in than your bar can handle.
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3
Time per order
Time ten orders: how long ordering and payment, preparation and pickup take. The longest part is your bottleneck, so start there.
Rule of thumb: wait time in minutes ≈ guests in the queue divided by the orders your bar handles per minute. If 20 guests are waiting and your bar handles one order per minute, the last one waits around 20 minutes.
Perceived wait
Why waiting feels longer than it is
How long a wait feels doesn’t just depend on the minutes. Former Harvard professor David Maister described in 1985 what makes waiting feel longer. Four of his principles fit the bar exactly.
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Unoccupied time feels longer
Guests who can already read the menu in the queue are occupied and know what they want when they reach the front. Even better: order from their spot and stay with their friends.
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Uncertain waits feel longer
Guests who know their order has arrived and when it will be ready wait more calmly. A message to their phone removes the uncertainty.
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Unexplained waits feel longer
If things are taking longer right now, for example because a keg is being changed, say so. With a short explanation, guests wait more patiently.
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Unfair waits annoy most
A clear order instead of a crowd. Guests notice when someone who came later is served first. That’s why skippr limits how many orders it moves up at most.
Source: David H. Maister, “The Psychology of Waiting Lines”, in: The Service Encounter, 1985.
Where skippr comes in
Three levers in one system.
skippr is a digital ordering system for bars, clubs and events by Line Skippr, Berlin. Guests order and pay via QR code without an app (lever 8), skippr plans the work behind the bar (lever 9) and sends a push notification when the order is ready (lever 10).
+60%*
More orders per hour
In initial tests, the same bar handled up to 60% more with skippr than when processing one ticket at a time.
With or without a POS
skippr runs alongside your POS or on its own if you don’t want to take payment at the bar at all.
1 tablet
per station
Set up at short notice. Training takes well under a quarter of an hour, even for temporary staff.
Example for your bar
If your bar handles 60 orders per hour at peak times, up to 60% more means up to 96.* In the example above, that would put it above the 75 orders coming in per hour.
No fixed costs, no minimum revenue, cancel monthly. Each order costs €0.10 as an ordering fee, plus the card payment fee from Nexi. All pricing details
Common questions about bar queues
How do I shorten the queue at the bar without hiring more staff?
By making sure your bar handles more orders per hour at peak times. The most important levers are a shorter menu for the rush, preparing everything before it starts, making identical drinks in one go, separating payment from preparation and keeping every station busy all the time. An ordering system like skippr takes over planning the work at the bar. In initial tests, the same bar handled up to 60% more orders per hour with it.
Why does the queue get long so quickly at peak times?
Because the difference adds up. If 75 orders come in per hour and your bar handles 60, the queue grows by 15 every hour. After two hours, 30 orders are waiting and the last one waits about 30 minutes. If the bar handles 72 per hour, it’s only around 5 minutes. That’s why a little more speed goes a long way.
Does a QR ordering system on its own lead to shorter queues?
Only partly. It takes ordering and payment out of the queue, and your team only makes drinks. But if preparation was the bottleneck, guests keep waiting, just not at the bar. The wait only gets shorter when the bar also handles more orders per hour. That’s why skippr also plans the work at the bar: batching identical drinks, making upcoming ones ahead and keeping free stations busy.
How do I measure how long guests wait at my bar?
Check your sales report for how many orders your bar handles in the busiest hour, and at peak times count how many guests are waiting every 15 minutes. As a rule of thumb: wait time in minutes ≈ guests in the queue divided by orders per minute. If 20 guests are waiting and your bar handles one order per minute, the last one waits around 20 minutes.
What helps when waiting feels longer than it is?
According to David Maister, waiting feels longer when it is unoccupied, uncertain, unexplained or unfair. So it helps to have a clearly visible menu in the queue, a clear order, a quick word when things take longer and a message when the order is ready. Best of all, guests don’t wait at the bar at all, but at their spot.
More questions? Write to us or read the general questions about skippr.
Let’s walk through your rush.
Tell us how many orders come in at your peak and what gets ordered most. We’ll show you which levers help you most and what skippr adds.