How to make opening/closing checklists (+ template download)

Darian Everding manages London Underground, a craft beer and whisk(e)y bar in Ames, IA.

Post-pandemic London Underground has invested in staff systems to make sure everything runs smoothly—stuff like staff messaging apps, learning/training policies, and checklists.

That last one has been huge. Darian has created a robust checklist system that allows London Underground's staff to be more accountable to one another and the business as a whole, and it's also allowed them to be less frantic around shift changes, which has made a very big difference.

Here's how Darian thinks about checklists:

• Be incredibly specific about the items on the checklists. Spell out every little thing.
• Teach staff how to do each checklist item. Go through the exact process they need to use for each checklist item. This will take a long time, but it'll be worth it.
• Make the checklists public to the rest of the staff. If staff have to face the person who'll live with the consequences of whether or not they did what they were supposed to do, then they'll be more accountable to one another.
• Accountability is key. If there aren't consequences for not doing the stuff you're supposed to do, then there's no point in even using checklists.
• This means you need to review the checklists for completion. At London Underground, the checklists are turned in to Darian every week so that management can review them. This is especially helpful if something goes wrong.

Check out the full 9-min interview clip to get even more detail about how Darian and the London Underground team have found success through checklists:

Why worry about menu design?

Imagine this: you've done the significant work to have an always-up-to-date beer menu. Every single time a keg kicks or a new can arrives you update the menu accordingly. And that happens multiple times a month/week.

But you're not seeing an uptick in beer sales. Why? The up-to-date menu should be helping. You're starting to wonder if maybe it's not worth maintaining the menu.

If this is the case, your issue might be with the design of your menu rather than the content. A poorly designed beer menu can flatline your beer sales. But a well-designed menu can:

• Make your customers want to spend time with your menu.
• Help customers figure out what to order more easily.
• This puts customers at ease: coming back to the menu to order another beer isn't a daunting task. It's a pleasant one.

How can I get a well-designed beer menu?

You could do it manually. How you'd implement it depends on what works for your budget/team, but it could look like this:

• Locate a graphic designer, ideally one who has experience with menu-making.
• Work with them to create a well-designed editable menu template. Make sure they understand the use case—you'll be editing this often, so it can't be a fragile design that breaks if a beer name is too long, etc. It also needs to be editable in an approachable software program, not a difficult-to-use design program.
• Train all necessary members of your team (managers, bartenders, etc.) on how to edit the menu template file. Make sure they practice so they know where to locate it, how to edit it, etc. You don't want them to be handcuffed on a Friday afternoon.
• Anytime your beer selection changes, you/a team member visits the file to delete the beer(s) that's gone and add the new beer(s).

It certainly takes some effort to track down a talented graphic designer and to train your team, but doing it manually like this could be worth it if that's your only option.

The Sloppy Boys got their start in showbiz as comedy writers—they wrote on the Comedy Bang Bang TV show and had their own skit show called the Birthday Boys, which ran on IFC for a couple years and was produced by Bob Odenkirk. Good comedy bona fides there.

Each week on the podcast the three hosts mix up a drink from the International Bartender's Association list of official cocktails. After a round or two they review it.

These guys are not cocktail experts—and as a former bartender I cringe at some of the things they don't know—but it's funny as hell, they unearth drinks I've never heard of (New York Shrub?), and it's interesting listening to relative newcomers work through the cocktails.

Check it out here or wherever you listen to your pods.

And to be clear, this isn't sponsored. I just like the podcast!

• NJ Governor Phil Murphy vetoed a change in state liquor laws that would allow breweries to sell food, host more events, etc. We've been tracking this one for awhile and the veto is unsurprising. But the governor did note that should changes be made to the bill (get unused liquor licenses back onto the market) he'd be willing to sign. We'll see.
• The BBC published an interesting look at "How women drinkers could save the male-centric beer industry."
• Paywalled, but the LA times had an interesting story about how tourists are flocking to—and destroying—Mexico's wine country.
• And for a bit of fun, here's an article from Good Beer Hunting about searching for Bigfoot in the Midwest.