The days of the bartender standing in a dank speakeasy, attempting to polish a dusty glass with a filthy cloth are long behind us. For one thing, prohibition in the US ended in 1933. And for another, the Hobart Bar Aid range of commercial dishwashers have made that filthy cloth all but obsolete. After all, if you work in a bar, why bother putting all that elbow grease into polishing the glasses when you could have a machine do it for you?

Unlike your standard glass washers for kitchen use, the Hobart Bar Aid range is a series of commercial dishwashers designed exclusively for bar use. Immediately this may suggest that they are nothing but a smaller version of the kitchen glass washer, which in turn hints at them being a luxury for affluent bars, showing off at how successful they are.

Of course, such an impression is totally erroneous; yes, the Hobart machines are commercial dishwashers designed exclusively for bar use, but unlike your glass washers, they are much quicker, to ensure a rapid turnover, with the smallest model able to clean 640 glasses per hour with its lightning-quick wash cycle of 90 seconds or 2 minutes, so all you bartenders out there will never suffer the embarrassment of having to tell your customers, "Sorry, but we're out of glasses."

The very idea of having to tell your clientele that your bar has no clean glasses left does sound odd, but imagine a busy night; imagine a major sporting event on television; the bar is filled to the rafters with fans looking to have a few drinks and watch the game, but if you have to shamefacedly tell them that the bar has no more drinks receptacles, the crowd will rapidly thin out, and while you may have the glasses to serve the remaining punters, you will still have missed out on a fantastic opportunity to make a huge amount of money.

The smallest of the Hobart range, the 400S, can clean a healthy amount of glasses in an hour, but for larger bars, including bars that serve food, you can even help the kitchen run more efficiently by opting for the 400S's larger sibling, the 800S. This heftier version has slightly longer wash cycles of 90 seconds or 3 minutes, but this extra time and space can clean even more glasses, or, to help out your kitchen staff, be used to clean plates. While this could help you maintain a fast-pace of service, the 800S and your standard commercial dishwasher are increasingly similar, so this is only recommended for the busier bar-restaurants and gastropubs. Furthermore, it is important to think of issues of space; you want a machine that can be tucked away in a corner for most bars, as anything bigger will surely just get in the way.

Then again, if space is no concern, there is Hobart's 900S, very similar to your pass-through commercial dishwashers by Kromo. For that reason, it hardly seems like a good investment, unless for a bar that is routinely packed every night of the week. While its size suggests it could even be used as an alternative to your commercial dishwasher, the rapid wash cycles, going from 1 to 2 minutes, mean it will not give any especially dirty dishes a good enough clean to send them back out to your customers. So while you may be considering investing in the Hobart Bar Aid Range for your bar, make sure you tread carefully and pick a machine that will be the best possible choice for your establishment.

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