Best practices to ensure a long lasting bar.
When we install your bar, we clean any remaining dust and buff smudges out with our furniture/wood polish, not only does it smell nice but its also a great deterrent for future dust to settle in the bar area. Using this wood polish, we clean everything from the bar top, bar fronts, upper cabinets and inside the lower cabinets. This means any furniture/wood polish you decide to use in the future is safe to use on every aspect of the bar. It is good to re-polish the high traffic areas periodically, it is there the polish wears off quickest but also the best area the polish’s protective properties will be useful. Any generic polish works for our bar, whether you prefer Pledge or Pine-Sol, you will always get that nice wood sheen.
One thing to remember is that it is a bar, after one or two (or four), accidents are bound to happen! Someone will spill a bit of beer or whiskey at some point. We have worked hard to make this virtually no big deal. We use only the hardest top coat lacquer that we have performed tests on. The finishing system we use is resistant to over 30 different chemicals and acidic materials specifically revolving around bar-like products. We have put multiple chemicals on our bar tops, and left them sitting overnight. After wiping of the liquids, no mark whatsoever! No need for you to worry after a get together that something might ruin your bar, get some much deserved sleep then tackle it all in the morning. Our bar tops are extra durable because we have applied a second coat of our durable top coat lacquer to give the bars focal point the best protection.
The counter tops are where the bartender will be mixing all the drinks, bound to get messy! If you have gone with our laminate countertops, all liquids will simply sit on top of the textured laminate until cleaned up, whether you clean it five minutes after spilling or five hours, nothing permeates into the counter and cleans off with just a wipe! An extremely durable product. If you’ve gone for a stone counter (granite, marble, quartz) a different care is needed. Depending on the colour of the stone and the type of stone it is, some of the more porous, lighter colours will absorb liquids after a time and will discolour the area. Spills on a porous stone counter should be wiped shortly after. When we install granite tops, we finish off the process with a Stone Sealer. This protects the surface of the counter as well as filling the stone’s porous areas with sealer to prevent any further liquids from entering. Resealing and stone polishing should be done yearly or more often depending on use.
The glass and mirror in the bar is all cleaned with a name brand window cleaner and paper towel, you can do this as often as you like to remove smudges and dust from the reflective surfaces. Mirrors, doors and glass shelves are the most common pieces of glass in our bars and make the whole bar look richer when cleaned. If when spraying the glass with your cleaner you hit the wood, you can buff that into the wood just like the polish.
It is handy to have a bar towel kicking around the area to clean up little spills or dry your hands, get a unique or personalized towel and it now becomes an accent piece on your bar. When we install your bar, we leave you a few coasters to start you off, they are not just for decoration but should be used to help keep your bar top surface flawless and without small surface scratching that would occur if a rough glass or plate were slid across the bar. Use them!
As a final note, if your bar has a footrail around it, the main metals we use are brass and nickel. Nickel is pretty much maintenance free and will keep the same look for its lifetime, brass on the other hand will patina over time, this is a natural tarnishing that occurs. If this is not the look you desire, you can prevent this by using a brass/metal polish periodically on all the exposed metal. This will protect your footrail and prevent further oxidization that causes the patina.
If you have a bar already and have more tips or little tricks you’ve figured out, let us know! We’d love to hear your feedback on these blogs! If you have further questions about caring for your bar or any other questions in general, we will be happy to answer them and can dedicate a blog post specifically to your question for everyone else to learn from.
Cheers,
Adam Gatto
Designer
The Bar Store Canada Inc.