A box arrives, it goes behind the bar, and in six weeks another box is ordered. Nobody knows how many broke, where, or when — and the number is usually larger than the figure anybody would guess.

The order goes in because somebody said "we're short on tall ones". A box of seventy-two arrives, goes under the bar, and in six or seven weeks somebody says it again.

This has been the entire management of the situation for years. It is not neglect — breakage feels like weather rather than a cost, because it arrives one glass at a time and never lands anywhere that anybody reads.

Why it never appears as a number

It happens in ones

⇒ A cost of eighty pence, forty times a week, is four thousand a year. ⚠️ Nothing about the individual event feels like a cost worth recording, and that is precisely why it never gets recorded.

It arrives as an order, not a loss

⭕ The only trace is a supplier invoice for a box, filed alongside the ones for gin and lemons. A replacement looks exactly like a purchase, so it never reads as breakage.

It is nobody's fault, so nobody reports it

⚠️ Dropped glasses are not misconduct. Which means there is no reason to say anything, and so nothing is said, and so nothing is known.

And the number is genuinely surprising

⇒ Most operators guess low by a wide margin. The first time it is counted for a month, the figure is usually a multiple of the estimate.

⇒ Stock Shrinkage Behind the Bar: Finding the Real Number

Where they actually go

Counting is only useful if you know where to look, and it is rarely where people assume.

The wash

⚠️ Loading, unloading, stacking, and the moment somebody puts a hot glass on a cold surface. This is usually the largest single source and the least visible, because it happens away from the floor.

Clear-down

⇒ Carrying eight at once at two in the morning is a decision people make when there is no rack and no bar back.

⇒ The Bar Back Nobody Scheduled

The floor and the tables

⚠️ Guests break glasses. This is the only category most venues notice, and it is not the biggest.

The bin

⭕ Glasses go out with the rubbish, in quantity, every night. Nobody means to; they are inside something that is being emptied quickly.

And out of the door

⇒ People walk outside with them, into smoking areas and onto pavements. This is loss, not breakage, and it responds to entirely different measures.

The costs that are not the glass

The unit price is the smallest part, which is why replacing the glass and calling it settled misses most of the problem.

The delivery

⚠️ An unplanned box is an unplanned order, and unplanned orders arrive on somebody else's schedule or with a charge.

⇒ The Delivery Window Nobody Set

The night you run out mid-service

⇒ Serving a tall drink in the wrong glass, or waiting on a wash cycle at eleven. ⭕ This is the real cost and it does not appear on any invoice.

The floor that stops

⚠️ A breakage on the floor means somebody stops, sweeps, and checks. Two or three minutes each time, and on a Saturday that adds up in the hour you can least afford it.

And the mismatched glasses

⇒ Six replacements from three orders and the shelf no longer matches. Guests notice, and it reads as not caring rather than as breakage.

The month that tells you everything

You do not need a system. You need four weeks and a tally.

One: count what you have, once

⭕ By type, on a Monday morning. Not an audit — a starting number.

⇒ The Stock You Never Count

Two: a mark on a sheet when one goes

Where it went ／ which type ／ nothing else

⚠️ Five seconds, no name, no blame. The moment it feels like a report, it stops being filled in.

Three: count again in four weeks

⇒ The difference, minus what you ordered, is your monthly breakage. ⭕ This is the first real number the venue has ever had on it.

And four: read where, not how many

⚠️ The total tells you the size. The "where" column tells you what to do, and they are different questions.

⇒ The Report You Open Every Monday

What actually reduces it

Almost all of it is equipment and layout rather than care.

Racks, and enough of them

⭕ Most wash-area breakage is a stacking problem, and stacking is what people do when there is nowhere to put a rack down.

Somewhere to land a full tray

⇒ A clear metre of bar. ⚠️ If there is nowhere, the tray is held while something else is done, and that is when it goes.

Let them cool

⚠️ Glass out of a hot machine onto a cold surface, or into ice, breaks. ⭕ This is a sequencing habit, not an equipment problem, and it is taught in one sentence.

Bins with a lid, and a rule about the last inch

⇒ The Cleaning Nobody Sees

And a policy at the door about taking them out

⭕ Whatever you decide, decide it — this is loss rather than breakage and it responds to a sign and a habit, not to better racks.

The safety half, which is not optional

⛔ What you are required to do about broken glass — near food and drink, in guest areas, and for the people clearing it — is a health and safety question, and it may carry duties under your licence. ⚠️ It differs by country and by premises.

⭕ Ask your adviser once and write the answer down. What follows is only the operational habit around whatever they tell you.

The sweep has to be immediate

⇒ Not at the end of the song. ⚠️ A broken glass on a dark dance floor is a different category of problem from one behind the bar.

Ice is the one everybody knows and nobody enforces

⛔ A glass broken in or near an ice well means the ice goes. ⚠️ All of it, every time, with no judgement call — because the judgement call is what makes it not happen.

And somebody has to be able to say what happened

⇒ If anybody is hurt, the record of when and where is what everything afterwards depends on.

⇒ The Incident Log You Do Not Keep

Buying, which is where the savings actually are

One type is cheaper than four

⭕ Fewer lines means bulk pricing, simpler stock, and a shelf that still matches after replacement. Most venues accumulate types rather than choosing them.

Toughened costs more and breaks less

⚠️ Whether it pays depends on your actual breakage rate — which is exactly the number you did not have until you counted for a month.

⇒ The Supplier Price That Moved

Order to a level, not to a panic

⇒ A par level and a monthly order beats a box whenever somebody notices. ⭕ This alone removes the rush-delivery charges.

⇒ The Supplier You Have Used For Ten Years

What good looks like

The number test

Ask what last month's breakage was. ⇒ A number means it is managed. A shrug means it is weather.

The rack test

Walk to the wash area at the busiest moment. ⚠️ If glasses are stacked because there is nowhere to put a rack, you have found most of it.

The shelf test

Working     — the glasses match, because they are ordered as a line
Not working — four types, because each order was a reaction

Three to hold

1  It never appears as a loss because a replacement looks like a purchase
2  Most of it happens in the wash, not on the floor
3  Count for one month before deciding anything — the guess is always low

Where the record has to sit

A tally with a "where" column, kept with the other shift records, turns four thousand a year of invisible cost into a line somebody can act on. Kept nowhere, the only evidence is a supplier invoice that looks identical to an order for spirits, and the venue keeps buying the same box forever.

⇒ The Stocktake That Never Balances

The Glasses You Replace Every Month