When heading out to their local watering hole for a drink, some customers prefer to serve themselves. We've highlighted Amsterdam's Minibar and the table-top taps of Pilsen's Unique Bars. Offering a self-service system that can be retrofitted anywhere is the TableTender by TableTap.
The TableTender system, available in Britain and the United States, is designed and built for each specific venue. There's a tap (or several) located at each table, which allows patrons to pour at their leisure—to a point. The system is designed to comply with drinking regulations, shutting off after dispensing around 11 pints of beer and only resuming once a waiter has checked the table. The amount dispensed is displayed on a meter at the table, as well as recorded on the proprietor’s database to monitor sales and consumption by hour, day, month and table.
Like installation, pricing is bespoke, but for a ballpark figure: the first bar to install the system paid USD 110,000, excluding a monthly fee for maintenance and software licensing. While the upfront costs may be steep, ease of drinks purchase combined with lower costs for wait staff could make for a profitable addition to bars seeking to stand out from the competition.
Website: www.tabletap.co.uk — www.thetabletap.com
Contact: www.tabletap.co.uk/contact — jeff.libby@thetabletap.com
In Asturias, a region in northern Spain, natural cider is a very popular drink, and it'served by pouring the drink from a height, to mix some air into the cider (see http://images.google.es/images?q=escanciar&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:es-ES:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=es&tab=wi). This requires some skil, and in the traditional cider bars (sidrerías) the waiter does it for you, but in new ones that have been opening over the last two or three years, the place is already set up so that a stream of cider falls into the glass at the guests' request.