Five Considerations Before Booking Professional Bartending Service (2023)

Do You Need Professional Bartending Service?

Professional bartending service is more of a necessity at wedding receptions and events with guest counts over 50, while it’s more of a luxury at small residential parties. A number of factors go into deciding to book a company such as Top Shelf Bartending.

We employ a stable of professional bartenders and provide service to Greater Pittsburgh, PA, Wilmington, NC, and Northeast Ohio. While we feel that our service adds a layer of professionalism and protection for a lot of hosts, we also recognize that not every event needs professional bartenders.

Before we get into it, Top Shelf Bartending encourages all hosts to contract us through our Home Page. A five or ten minute conversation can usually determine if a host needs to hire professional bartenders.

That said, here are five considerations for hosts and venue owners who may need professional bartending service, now or in the future.

1. Do Dram Shop Laws Apply?

The first question most hosts and venue owners should ask before booking a professional service is if their state has Dram Shop Laws, and if they could be potentially exposing themselves to third-party liability.

Dram Shop Laws primarily concern Driving Under the Influence (DUI), but involve any situation in which an over-served guest or patron injures a third party.

As an example, a guest at a wedding could have too much to drink, and then go pick a fight at a bar down the street following a wedding reception. If it’s determined in court that this person was served irresponsibly at the wedding reception – prior to arriving at the bar – then the host, the venue, and the bartending service could all be potentially liable.

Top Shelf Bartending operates primarily in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, with a few events in Ohio. The liquor laws in those three states vary quite a bit.

Pennsylvania is one of the strictest states in the nation regarding alcohol and liquor control. Meanwhile, North Carolina is fairly loose by comparison. Ohio lies somewhere in between.

We cover Dram Shop Laws and third-party liability at length in our post on Retail Liquor Liability Insurance.

Ultimately, the onus is on the host to know their state’s key liquor laws prior to holding an event or wedding reception. There are a handful of key laws, including the specific Dram Shop Laws within each state, that hosts should familiarize themselves with.

But Top Shelf Bartending can cut down on some of the time and uncertainty surrounding large events, as we staff dozens of private parties and receptions every season.

2. Size of the Event

People hosting friends and neighbors for a holiday party or get-together don’t “need” professional bartending service. But for certain events or special occasions, hosts might prefer to have professional bartenders on hand to create signature drinks or provide service for a particular crowd.

Top Shelf Bartending recommends one bartender per 75-100 guests for wedding receptions. Our average wedding reception is usually around 120 guests, though we regularly staff weddings with guest counts at or above 200.

Good bartenders solve problems before they appear. One of the highest compliments we receive at Top Shelf is when a bride, groom, or host tell us after an event that everything went off flawlessly.

While there are hitches at almost any event – especially those involving alcohol service and higher guest counts – an advantage of going with professional service is that pros are experienced in deescalating conflicts and active troubleshooting.

Watch any experienced bartender, and you will see incredible multi-tasking. You will see bartenders catch trays full of drinks before a guest inadvertently knocks them over, while simultaneously dousing a dispute between a rowdy pair of guests.

The unique skill-set of a true professional bartender can’t really be taught – only obtained through years of experience. Managing both the logistics and the emotions of a given crowd – especially as that number moves past 50 or 100 guests – is the hallmark of a professional, as opposed to simply someone pouring drinks.

We also regularly staff parties of 50 guests or less, sometimes as intimate as 20 guests. If a host wants to have an elaborate list of cocktails or signature drinks – or if the host just wants to relax and attend the party as a guest – it can be a fun indulgence to hire professional staff.

3. Scope of the Event

This goes hand-in-hand with the event’s size. Even if the guest count is manageable and the work is routine – cracking beers or pouring wine – it might be appropriate to hire a professional bartending service for logistics and appearance.

Top Shelf Bartending works with clients based on the scope of their event. We recognize that there is a difference between opening beers for guests at a boxing match versus creating custom cocktails for ~200 guests at a wedding reception. Our approach is to work with the expectations of our clients and to put our professional bartenders into the best situations to succeed.

Events are also what the hosts want to make of them. For example, we are regularly contracted to work 30th, 40th, and 50th birthday parties. During the spring, we do graduation parties ranging from 25 to 200 guests. Holiday parties, will also vary in scope, make up a big chunk of our calendar year.

In short, an event’s guest count doesn’t necessarily tie into it’s scope. While it’s certainly advisable to hire professionals for events with guest counts over 100, in many cases it might be appropriate to book a bar service for a relatively small number of guests. The occasion speaks more to the scope of an event than the guest count, in most cases.

We encourage clients hosting catered events or wedding receptions to contact us. A brief discussion can usually determine if a host’s event would benefit from professional bartending service, or if a more cost-effective approach might be prudent.

4. Location of the Event

Commercial venues and rental spaces attached to an LLC greatly benefit from hiring a professional service. It goes without saying, but we live in a highly-litigious world, and in the event of any kind of incident, injured parties are apt to come after business if they feel damages have occurred.

Top Shelf does any number of corporate events each season. These can range from fundraisers to retirement parties to celebrations on a great sales quarter. But what these events have in common is that they are typically held in commercial spaces, rather than an individual’s home. And commercial locations tend to incur liability that private residences do not.

5. Does the Venue Require Liquor Liability Insurance?

This is key, and usually the determining factor when hosts opt to book a professional bartending service.

Most wedding venues – especially those with a few years of experience or incidents under their belts – will want as much insurance protection as possible. And wedding venues are generally much more receptive to a credentialed service working an event or reception than a friend of the host or bartenders coming from a social media site.

As discussed, most professional services carry annual insurance policies called Retail Liquor Liability Insurance. These policies permit services such as Top Shelf to distribute alcohol. They are not liquor licenses – businesses like Top Shelf are not permitted to sell alcohol, per se – but we can provide hosts  and venue owners with a layer of protection because we are credentialed in a certain way.

Some states and some venues allow hosts to purchase 1-3 day insurance policies called Host Liability Policies. These policies are comprehensive, and provide hosts coverage from adverse weather, general liability, damage to bridal gowns, and so on.

Again, the laws vary greatly from state to state regarding alcohol service. While some states – and some venues within those states – are comfortable accepting Host Liability Policies for alcohol service, we have found that a lot of those policies provide insufficient coverage if alcohol-related damages occur.

This is not to alarm hosts or to badger them into purchasing the use of a liquor liability policy through a service such as Top Shelf. This is to let hosts know what happens in the real world.

In the event of an incident, everyone wants to absolve themselves of blame. Companies that sell single-use Host Liability Policies do not want to pay out for damages related to alcohol service. Most people are aware that compensatory damages tied to Driving Under the Influence can be costly. These are costs that insurance companies will fight tooth-and-nail not to pay out.

Annual policies held by professional bartending services like Top Shelf Bartending mainly protect against this specific situation. The cost of our annual premium is fairly high, but we also provide protection in a way that single-use policies do not and will not.

For more information on the differences between Host Liability and Retail Liquor Liability policies, readers are encouraged to check out the previous article in our blog.

Conclusions

Our business is staffing professional bartenders. We have a vested interest and a sales component in encouraging hosts to book professional bartending service. But Top Shelf Bartending operates ethically – we don’t try to trick hosts into booking our bartenders when it’s maybe not the right fit.

If you run a wedding venue or are hosting an event and have additional concerns or questions about Dram Shop Laws, we encourage you to reach out. We are always happy to help new venue owners or hosts navigate uncertain waters, and we provide a lot of free information to first-timers.