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Learn what features you should look for when purchasing a point of sale system for your bar or brew pub.
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The best POS systems for small businesses can work for bars and breweries, but there are a few bar-specific features you shouldn’t overlook.
The best point of sale systems for bars, nightclubs, breweries, or pubs should include industry-specific integrations, flexible hardware options, low processing fees, and your choice of payment processor.
Here’s what to look for when choosing a POS system for your bar or brewery.
For simplicity, we’ll use “bar” to refer to all establishments that serve alcohol — including nightclubs, breweries, pubs, and food carts — throughout this article.
Here are the most essential POS features for bars.
Bars change menus frequently for happy hours, game-day specials, and seasonal drinks. A POS with flexible menu scheduling helps prevent pricing errors and keeps operations smooth.
Toast is a standout in this area, offering detailed menu management, easy promo setup, and real-time stock alerts.
Your POS should be able to scan IDs, flag fake cards, and record alcohol sales for compliance. Many liquor-focused systems track age-restricted transactions for audits and error prevention.
Technical issues rarely wait for business hours. Look for a POS with true 24/7 support and strong offline functionality so you can keep serving even during outages.
A good bar POS should have strong inventory management that tracks liquid inventory, monitors pour levels, stores drink recipes, and alerts you when ingredients run low. Real-time stock updates prevent out-of-stock errors and keep bartenders in the loop.
Basic time tracking and scheduling are essential, but advanced employee tools like customizable permissions, fraud monitoring, and comp tracking add an extra layer of control.
Your POS should support pre-authorized tabs, open tickets, and transfers between servers. Features like split checks make managing large groups fast and easy.
Comprehensive POS reporting turns transaction data into insight. Look for detailed sales, employee, and customer reports to identify trends and improve performance.
Even with all the right features, it’s important to do your homework before committing to a POS system.
If you’re choosing a POS for your bar, start by asking:
These questions are just the beginning, but researching reviews and speaking with sales reps will give you a clear picture of how each system fits your business.
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Square POS is an intuitive and simple point of sale platform. It offers customizable tools and a variety of add-ons to fit your business needs and reach your goals.
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The vendors that appear on this list were chosen by subject matter experts on the basis of product quality, wide usage and availability, and positive reputation.
Merchant Maverick’s ratings are editorial in nature, and are not aggregated from user reviews. Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships.
Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone.
Square POS is an intuitive and simple point of sale platform. It offers customizable tools and a variety of add-ons to fit your business needs and reach your goals.
Get Started
