What’s in a name? When it comes to names for bartending businesses, the answer is quite a lot!
A good name is easy to remember, accurately reflects the nature of your business, and stands out from the competition, among other things. Coming up with one that fits the bill can be as intimidating as it is challenging.
To make the process a little easier, we’re breaking down how to choose the best bartender business names, from brainstorming ideas to the next steps to take once you’ve picked your favorite. With a little help, you’ll be ready to register your business and start promoting it in no time!
1. Consider Your Mission and Goals
A good place to start when naming your business is to ask yourself three questions before creating a list of potential names:
- Who is your target customer?
- What are your business’ core values?
- What goals do you have for your business?
The name of your business is the first thing prospective customers will learn about you, so it’s important to make sure whichever name you choose is an accurate reflection of your enterprise. It should both speak directly to your target market and ideally reflect your goals or values. In fact, 64% of people say they are loyal to a business because they share the same values.
For example, if you want your mobile bartending business to cater specifically to weddings, you’ll have a different target customer than if you planned to only work corporate events. A name that works for a wedding bartending service probably won’t work for a corporate bartender and vice versa.
2. Brainstorm Ideas
Once you have a good grasp on the foundations of your business, you can use those as guidelines to start brainstorming bartender business name ideas. Staring at a blank piece of paper can be daunting, so try some of these brainstorming prompts to get the ball rolling.
Explore Search-Friendly Keywords
If someone was searching for a business like yours in Google, what words would they use to describe it? Including search-friendly keywords in your bartending business name can make your business easier to find online. Bartender, wedding, drink cart, liquor, and wine as well as location-based words like your city, county, or local region are a few examples of search-friendly keywords for mobile bartending services.
Using keywords like these in your business’ name can help with search engine optimization (SEO). Having SEO-friendly keywords in your business’ name won’t just help it rank higher in search results, it’ll also help people immediately understand what it is your business offers. Try using these free tools to find the right keywords for your business:
Think of Fitting Adjectives
What words best describe your business? Is your goal to be the most affordable mobile bartending service in town? If so, “cheap” or “thrifty” might get that mission across to your customers.
Do you plan on having vintage-inspired branding for your business and going for a retro vibe? “Timeless,” “nostalgic,” or “old-fashioned” could be fitting to include in your name.
Try Free-Writing
Set a timer for at least 15 minutes and write down any words, phrases, or names that come to mind. Don’t worry about whether they’re any good or if they even make sense for your business, just get them down on paper. Once the timer goes off, take a break for ten minutes and then do it again.
When you’ve done all you can, take a look at your list and start weeding out the ideas you don’t like. There are bound to be at least a few winners after all that brainstorming.
Get Personal
Many businesses are named for the founder or in honor of a close friend or loved one of the creator. Including a name, whether yours or someone else’s, gives your business a personal touch.
When brainstorming, make sure to add the names of anyone you might want to name your business after. Make sure to include a short description of why you want to name your business after them, too.
Evoke an Emotion
Is there a feeling you want your customers to associate with your business, such as nostalgia or joy? Make a list of words that you associate with that particular feeling and that prospective customers would as well. Using the feeling of nostalgia as an example, here are some related words that customers may associate with that emotion:
- Classic
- Timeless
- Old-fashioned
- Antique
- Vintage
If you get stuck, it might help to think of a time when you felt this way. What were you doing? Where were you? Write down the memory and see if any words pop out to you as something you could include in your business’ name.
Try a Name Generator
If you get stuck in the brainstorming process and want a little assistance, a mobile bartending business name generator can help spur some new ideas. The names you get from using a generator might not be ready to use right off the bat, but with a few tweaks here and there they can become serious contenders.
If nothing else, using a name generator should provide you with some new words to add to your growing list. You can also try using a free AI service like ChatGPT to generate more ideas.
3. Narrow Down Your Bartending Business Name Ideas
Once you’ve put in the brainstorming work and have a solid list of words in front of you, it’s time to start mixing and matching them to create a short list of potential business names. While you do this, keep the following points in mind to help guide you towards the perfect name.
Consider Your Business Model
It’s important that prospective customers know right away that your mobile bartending service will travel to their event or venue. Consider incorporating this concept into your business name.
“On wheels,” “on the go,” and “in motion” are just a few phrases that will evoke this sense of mobility and movement that you want in a mobile bartender business name. When brainstorming, come up with a list of travel- or transportation-related words that you can include as part of your business’ name.
Experiment with Wordplay
If you want your bartender business name to have a sense of humor, using wordplay can get that message across to prospective customers. Wordplay can be accomplished in one of four ways:
- Puns. Take a look at your list of words and consider which of them sound a lot like other words or could easily be inserted into common phrases. For example, “Mimosa Non Grata,” an alcohol-related twist on the phrase “persona non grata,” or “Stirred Wheel” as a play on “third wheel.”
- Combining words. By putting two words together, you can create a totally unique name for your business such as “Algebar” (algebra + bar) or “Poursalot.”
- Alliteration. Try pairing words that start with the same letter together, such as “Monster Margaritas” or “Wandering Wines.”
- Rhymes. This is a great way to ensure your business name is catchy and memorable. Because of their innate musical quality, including a rhyme in your brand name may make it more memorable. Channel your inner Dr. Seuss with names like “Quicker Liquor” or “Cruisin’ and Boozin’.”
Get Feedback
While your business name should be one you’re happy with, make sure you run your list of top contenders past others to get their opinions. You can source feedback from family, friends, or online groups to get a sense of which names resonate most with them. Try using a free tool like SurveyMonkey to create a survey, or a poll on your Instagram Story to garner responses.
The feedback you get can help you narrow down your list to one or two names. If you can, ask people to explain why certain names stick out to them the most—for better or worse. There might be a name that reminds people of something you don’t want to be associated with and never thought of, so it’s best to know now before you consider moving forward with it!
4. Research Your Top Ideas
After you’ve picked a few bartending business names you really like, it’s important to make sure that you can stand out from the competition with one of those options. Go to Google and search for local mobile bartending businesses to see if your name is too similar to—or exactly the same as—any of theirs. The last thing you want is for your business to be nearly indistinguishable from another.
Even if your favorite potential name doesn’t show up on Google, it may still be in use. Try using the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s search system to see if it shows up there. This is especially important to do in case the name you want to use is trademarked, as you could face charges of willful infringement if you try to operate with a name that has already been trademarked.
This is also a good time to make sure you can purchase a website domain name with your chosen business name. An easy way to do this is to type the name of the domain you want into the search bar and add .com or .net to see if those websites already exist. You can also use a domain search tool to see if someone has purchased a domain but isn’t using it.
Pro Tip: If the domain you want is already taken, you can use a domain lookup to try and find contact information for the current owner. You can then ask them if they’re willing to sell the domain, and hopefully they’ll be willing to part with it for a fair price.
5. Register Your Mobile Bartending Business Name
Once you’ve gathered feedback and conducted some competitor research, it’s time to make things official and register your business with your state and local governments!
In most cases, registering your business just involves registering your business’ name. You may only need to file with the federal government in order to get your federal tax ID, unless you want to file for trademark protection or tax-exempt status. Otherwise, once you’ve registered your business as a legal entity the name should no longer be available for any other businesses to use.
The requirements for registering your business can differ depending on where you live, so make sure to follow the instructions for your state on the U.S. Small Business Administration’s website.
6. Get Your Brand Up and Running
Picking the perfect name for your bartending business is a huge first step to starting this exciting new endeavor! Let’s take a look at some of the next steps you’ll need to take once you’ve successfully registered your business name.
Branding
Before you started brainstorming names for your business, you were already thinking a bit about branding when you considered what your business’ core values were and what you wanted to convey to prospective customers with your name.
Other aspects of branding you’ll need to consider are:
- Your logo. Consider hiring a graphic designer to work with you on creating your logo, or try making your own using Canva. A good logo is simple, memorable, and versatile enough to be used on your website or on the side of a van.
- Your color palette. Color psychology is a powerful tool that brands often utilize, so the colors you choose to represent your business should be selected with this in mind. For example, orange is typically associated with excitement and energy while purple tends to evoke luxury and authenticity.
- Your brand voice and tone. Do you want your brand to feel playful, refined, confident, or something entirely different? Consider your target audience when developing your brand voice. How do they communicate? What tone resonates with them?
Marketing
Once you’ve solidified your logo, color scheme, and brand voice, it’s time to start marketing your business and getting your name out in front of prospective customers. There are countless marketing strategies in existence, but here are a handful you should consider for your mobile bartending business:
- Social media marketing. It’s essential for most local businesses to have a social media presence on Instagram and Facebook. It’s important to post on a regular basis and respond to questions and comments to stay engaged with customers. Consider joining local Facebook groups where people may be looking for bartending services, such as event and/or wedding planning groups to interact with potential clientele.
- Making a Google Business Profile. Having a Google Business Profile helps you take control of what people see when they search for your business—and it’s completely free! Choose which aspects of your business you want customers to know at a glance (i.e. your hours of operation, contact information, website, etc.) and easily respond to customer reviews.
- Creating a website. Having a central location where customers can go to learn everything they need to know about you is critical for your success. Once you’ve purchased your domain name, consider hiring a freelance web designer on Fiverr to create your site or build it yourself through platforms like Wix and Squarespace.
- Word-of-mouth referrals. Word-of-mouth is a powerful tool when it comes to promoting your business, and one of the best ways to get customers to talk about you is to offer referral rewards to customers. If a customer tells their friend about your business and that friend books you for a gig, offer the first customer something like a discount or cash reward for successfully referring you.
- Hosting a launch party. When done right, launch parties can create buzz for your business and may allow you to connect with wedding and event planners who may then recommend you to any of their clients looking for a bartending service. Make a point to introduce yourself and chat with each person who attends.
Protecting Your Business
As with any industry, there are certain risks that come with managing a mobile bartending business. These risks include:
- Accidentally serving alcohol to a minor
- A customer tripping over your equipment at an event and injuring themselves
- Your bar cart scraping the floor of a venue, resulting in the need for costly repairs
- Two drunk patrons you served alcohol to getting into a physical fight with each other at the event
While you can take steps to mitigate these risks, it’s not possible to eliminate them entirely. Incidents like these can result in claims costing you thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, medical fees, and/or damages.
In order to protect yourself from shouldering these costs entirely on your own, you need bartender liability insurance. At Insurance Canopy, we make it easy for you to get the comprehensive policy your business requires by bundling general liability with liquor liability coverage, starting at $35.42 per month for an annual policy.
Or, if you only need temporary coverage, we offer an event policy starting at $275 for up to three days of coverage. Even if your event only lasts for one day, the extra two days of coverage ensure your business is protected during set-up and teardown.
Having bartender insurance doesn’t just help protect your business from financial catastrophe; it also boosts your business’ credibility to potential clientele by showing that you are prepared in case something goes wrong.
Cheers to Your New Bartending Business!
Starting a mobile bartending business is an exciting adventure, and choosing the right name is the first step on your journey to success. While picking the perfect name is only part of starting your bartending business, we hope these tips help get your creative juices flowing and we wish you the best in your bartending endeavors!
