first floor keg room for ground floor bar?

zuppy11

Hi, I'm rebuilding a pub with limited ground floor space. I'd like put the keg room on the first floor in order to maximise floor space below. Is there a method for lifting kegs to first floor stores, keeping in mind that bulky lifts etc would take up too much space? If anyone has seen a solution please fill me in.
Thanks a million.

irish_goat

Depending on what kind of room you have you could set up some sort of pulley system using either manual power or an electric pulley.

Is building a cellar out of the question?

zuppy11

Out of the question Im afraid.

The elec pulley might be the job. I suppose the proper design on the trap door would be the tricky part. Concrete floors going in so the first atempt would be the last. Also, you wouldnt want heat A) escaping through badly sealed/insulated trap door. going into keg room.

Cheers!

Martyn1989

It sounds like an awful lot of hastle, stock will be moving in and out of this space daily, to have to do one at a time on a pulley system would be excruciating. Alot of cellars have the electric lifts fitted and you mentioned space as being a priority but it may be your only option for ease and efficiency. Have you space around the premises?

irish_goat

A pulley would be grand and wouldn't necessarily need a trap door. Have a normal door on the 1st floor that opens to the outside and build a balcony of sorts that you suspend the pulley over. Kegs come up, you pull them onto the balcony and then inside. You'd need to do that round the back though and ensure deliveries could get round there. I'm assuming health and safety wouldn't allow you to do it without the balcony/some sort of railing to stop people falling out of the 1st floor.

irish_goat

Martyn1989 wrote: »

It sounds like an awful lot of hastle, stock will be moving in and out of this space daily, to have to do one at a time on a pulley system would be excruciating

Most pubs only get deliveries once a week. If it's a small pub it might not even get that many kegs. Plus moving empty stock out would be as simple as opening the door and dropping it down onto some sandbags.

BaZmO*

The Bull and Castle's keg room is on the first floor.

Martyn1989

irish_goat wrote: »

Most pubs only get deliveries once a week. If it's a small pub it might not even get that many kegs. Plus moving empty stock out would be as simple as opening the door and dropping it down onto some sandbags.

Taking in a keg delivery on that kind of pulley system makes a one person job a two person job and slows everything down, it also sounds dangerous if you've less experienced staff working. I've never come across a first floor cold room (aside from big hotels and places that have the space but even still the tendency is to just run the lines up).

A very small pub doing very little trade will still take in 15-20 kegs a week which would be manageable but by no means ideal. If your taking in 60-100 or more your going to have 2 members of staff working on it for quite a while. I'd imagine he'll have his bottle store up there too.

Its fine to be throwing kegs around if your not in a residential area (noise complaints), and they'll be coming down from higher then usual into the carpark/lane/road.

Pub cold rooms/cellars and deliveries in/out are where most staff injuries arise. I would really consider the ground floor cold room, it'll make everything safer and more efficient and you'll still have the space on the first floor to play around with.

Martyn1989

BaZmO* wrote: »

The Bull and Castle's keg room is on the first floor.

Touche, does that only serve the beer hall or both bars? Anyone know how they do it?

zuppy11

Thanks for all the posts.
I'd imagine that it would be quiet do-able. Bottles could stay down stairs as I'll be moving stock out of the bottle store on a daily basis. There wont be too many drops of 25+ kegs each year so its prob only ever a one man job. Must pay a visit to that pub... im sure they would give me a look at their system?
Cheers.

BeerNut

Martyn1989 wrote: »

does that only serve the beer hall or both bars?

Only the Beerhall. There's a cellar as well for the downstairs bar.

irish_goat

Martyn1989 wrote: »

Touche, does that only serve the beer hall or both bars? Anyone know how they do it?

We lift the kegs up. A lot of the micros use halfsized kegs so that makes the job a lot easier.

It's a 2 man job to empty a pub cellar, 1 person to lift up from the cellar and 1 person on the street to lift out. Generally these 2 are the same people each week so training them on how to use the pulley would be sufficient.

Zuppy, the keg room has a big glass window so anyone can look in but if you ask when it's not busy I'm sure you can get a look inside.

zuppy11

Ya I'm sure i could. If you think of or see anything else plz let me know.
Cheers

Martyn1989

I cant see it being ideal. Cellars work because kegs go in heavy and go out light, you'll be working against that (and some). Cellars are also normally only about 5-6ft deep at the hatch were here it'll be to the first floor.

If its ground floor itll take 20 minutes to take in or 25 if he gives the place a quick clean

I've worked in a pub that only took in about 20 kegs a week and we had a tiny cold room that took bottles, kegs and spirits and the coffin cooler which was only about 3m x 7m total, it was a little tight but it was ok.

minidazzler

An Bodhran in Cork has a first floor keg room which seems to work rather well. They have very little space to work with so all kegs have to be lowered using the pulley too. I think they can do two lowering at a time.

I wouldn't exactly call it convenient, but it works for them.