Best-of list · Industry Guide
The real steps to opening a bar — licensing, fit-out, staffing, and avoiding the mistakes that kill most new openings in year one. A practical guide.
The short answer
8 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.
How to open a bar is one of the most-searched questions in hospitality, and the answers available online range from useless to actively dangerous. We have spent considerable time talking to bar owners at various stages of the process — from those still in planning to those who have been running successful rooms for a decade — and we have distilled their collective knowledge into the guide we wish had existed when they started.
Every first-time bar owner believes the first step is finding the right location. It is not. The first step is understanding your concept with enough specificity that you can answer, without hesitation, who your customer is, what they are doing in your bar, and why they are choosing you over every other option within walking distance. This sounds obvious. It is not. Most failed bar openings can be traced to a concept that was never specific enough to survive contact with a real neighbourhood.
A concept is not a vibe. "A relaxed neighbourhood spot with good cocktails" describes approximately 60 percent of bars opened in any given year. A concept is a specific answer to a specific question: what does this bar do that nothing else in this postcode does? The most successful openings we have tracked all started with an answer to that question that could be stated in two sentences, and stayed true to it through every subsequent decision — menu, decor, pricing, staffing, and hours.
How we picked
The bars that survive their first three years — the notoriously difficult period in any bar's life — are not the ones that opened with the largest budgets or the best press coverage on opening night. They are the ones that stayed specific about their concept under pressure, hired and retained people who understood what the bar was trying to do, and treated licensing and operational planning as the unglamorous work that actually determines outcomes.
If you are planning to open a bar, spend more time on concept clarity and staffing philosophy than on fit-out and menu design. The drinks and the room can be improved after opening. The fundamental question of what the bar is for, and who it is for, needs to be answered before you sign a lease.
Tom spent eight years in bar operations before switching to writing about the industry. He covers craft beer, whisky, and the unglamorous economics of hospitality for several trade and consumer publications.
Last reviewed 2026-03-10 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.