Equipment List
Every tool a serious bar-prep program actually needs, organized by station and ranked by priority. The fastest way to improve a bar is to subtract equipment, not add it — so this list is shorter than you expect, and the order matters.
What it adds up to
Round numbersCosts reflect current public retail. Wholesale and restaurant supply pricing will reduce these by 15–30%.
The honest take
A program can run beautifully on $130 of equipment, properly used. A program will run badly on $6,500 of equipment, sloppily used. The capital outlay is not the variable. The variable is the discipline of the person operating the equipment.
Most bars I have walked through have purchased their kit upside down: they own a centrifuge before they own a scale; they own a rotovap before they own a refractometer; they own three centrifugal juicers but no fine chinois. Reverse this. Buy the essentials, master them for six months, then earn the next tier.
What's missing from this list
This page covers prep equipment specifically. Service equipment — shakers, mixing glasses, jiggers, julep strainers, ice molds, glassware — is a separate discipline and will be covered in a forthcoming module. The two categories overlap in places but operate by different selection criteria.
Also missing: software. Inventory management, par-level tracking, and recipe-card systems are critical for any program above two seats and will get their own section. Spreadsheets work fine for the first year. After that, they don't.