Why we built this
Open Source Barware started with a problem every working bar manager recognizes: close out, grab the clipboard, count bottles by tenths, walk to the office, type numbers into a spreadsheet from 2014, try to reconcile against POS sales, and watch it never quite add up. The industry has lived that loop for decades while vendors sold inventory guns, monthly SaaS fees, and consulting priced by the bottle.
We built the program we wished existed. It is free, open source, and designed around how bars actually run — voice notes on a walk-through, a spreadsheet everyone can read, weekly inputs for counts and invoices, and an AI home base that explains what changed instead of hiding behind a dashboard. No signup wall. No email capture. No investor deck between you and a clean count.
What “open source” means here
The program, documentation, and operating logic are meant to stay in the open. You can download the system, run it in Chrome, connect the AI provider you already trust, and keep your own inventory map and weekly packet on your terms. Fork it. Improve it. Share it with the next bar that is tired of renting their own workflow.
- One free Chrome-side program — not six upsells dressed as a toolkit.
- Customer-owned data with provider-connected AI, not a black-box platform.
- Checks and gates before the first live count, so the map is right before the math.
- Weekly rhythm: count the room, add invoices and POS, read the story.
What’s next
Now we build The World Hidden Bar Tour. City by city, every couple of months, we visit a new market — the bars that are popular and famous, the bartenders working those rooms, and the locals who actually know where to go after last call. We spend a few days on the floor, collect their recommendations for hidden bars, and tour the spots they trust to build another hidden-bar map for that city.
Miami is first. Richard spent ten years there and already has five bars almost nobody outside the trade would think to visit — places that are absolutely brilliant once you know they exist. September is the first venture. That is what the fundraising is for.
The inventory program is only the start. Next comes a full wine inventory system — updated pour logic, pitchers in depth, and hundreds of varietals of wine. A chat forum where bartenders can network, share what works, and talk shop with each other. And a full resource library — cocktail references, beer and wine references, and everything else worth keeping behind the bar, free for the people who use it.
Buy us a drink
The software stays free. Donations through Ko-fi help cover hosting, images, and the time it takes to keep the project open and honest for everyone. Every contribution keeps Open Source Barware alive without turning it into something we would not want to use behind our own bar.
Hosting is only the floor. What you are really backing is the work still coming:
- Phone software built for real counts on the floor
- Digital scale integration — actual scale data import, not guesswork
- Notification systems that tell the right people at the right time
- Full liquor and wine inventory with the standards you can actually buy against
- Product history that follows a bottle from delivery to depletion
- A library for product knowledge — teaching brochures your other bartenders can use
- A working management-style bar bible so managers and leads stay on the same page
And beside all of that, we are launching The World Hidden Bar Tour — city by city, bartender by bartender, mapping the bars worth knowing that most people never find.
There are a lot of good reasons to buy us a drink. Your support keeps the free program moving and funds the next layer of tools, tours, and trade knowledge we are building for the people behind the stick.
