How Many Glasses Does a Bar Actually Need? A Stocking Guide by Venue Size
by CWDH, 2 min reading time
The working formula for glassware quantities: covers, turnover, breakage — with worked examples for a café, a 60-seat restaurant and a busy cocktail bar.
Every venue either has too few glasses (polishing mid-service, guests waiting) or far too many (cash sitting in boxes in the store room). Here's the working method we use when customers ask us to size a glassware order.
The formula
For each glass type: seats × expected servings per seat per sitting × 2.5. The 2.5 covers the three places a glass lives during service — in use, in the wash cycle, and clean on the shelf — plus a margin so one busy wave doesn't empty the shelf. Then add 10–15% a year for breakage (higher for stemware, lower for tumblers), and round up to the pack size — LAV glassware ships in packs of 6 or 12, so orders land on those multiples anyway.
Worked example: 40-seat café
Water and soft drinks nearly every cover: 40 × 1 × 2.5 = 100 → ~8–9 packs of 12 Mallorca lowballs. Latte menu: 40 × 0.5 × 2.5 = 50 → 4 packs of the Archie latte glass. Add Istanbul carafes — one per 2–3 tables → ~15.
Worked example: 60-seat restaurant
Water: 60 × 1 × 2.5 = 150 tumblers (Mallorca tall). Wine: 60 × 0.7 × 2.5 ≈ 105 wine glasses. Sparkling for occasions: 3–4 packs of the Sofia coupe. Digestifs: 2 packs of the Sofia cognac glass cover a 60-seater comfortably.
Worked example: cocktail bar, 80 covers a night
Split by menu share, not seats. If half your list is long drinks: 80 × 0.5 × 2.5 = 100 highballs (Archie highball). Up drinks at 30%: 60 → 5 packs across the martini and coupe. Whiskey serves: 3–4 packs of the Rotterdam whiskey glass. Shots: 2 packs of the Archie shot glass — they vanish, so budget replacements.
Three rules that save money
First: fewer glass types, deeper stock — a versatile tumbler that covers water, soft drinks and short cocktails beats five specialist shapes half-stocked. Second: stay inside one or two collections so replacements always match — every LAV product page on cwdh.ie shows the pack size at the quantity box. Third: reorder at 80% of your original count, not when you run out — breakage is gradual until the Saturday it isn't.
Shop the range
- All glassware and bar equipment
- Mallorca lowball and tall glass — the everyday workhorses
- Archie highball, martini and shot glass
- Sofia coupe and cognac glass
- Istanbul carafe 1.2 l
