Bespoke Back Bars

A counter gets a bar noticed, but it is the back bar that gets looked at. Whoever is sitting or standing at the counter spends most of their time facing the wall behind it, which is why we treat the back bar as the visual centrepiece of the whole design, not a supporting run of storage.

Symmetry does a great deal of work here. A back bar built around a central axis — often a mirror panel or a section of open shelving — reads as calm and intentional even when it holds a genuinely large number of bottles and glasses. We set this out early in the drawing, usually before deciding on individual shelf widths, so the overall composition holds together once everything is in place.

Bottle display is usually the priority for the open sections. Shelving here is set at a depth and spacing that suits the bottles actually being displayed, with the more distinctive or frequently used bottles given more prominent positions. Lighting, run through the shelving itself, lifts the display considerably — a well-lit row of bottles reads as intentional in a way that a shadowed shelf never quite does.

Glassware needs somewhere close to hand, and we usually give it a section of its own — open shelving for glasses in regular use, closed cabinets for spares or less common shapes. Mirrors behind glass shelving double the sense of stock on display and bounce light back into the room, which is part of why mirrored backs are such a recurring feature of back bar design.

Preparation surfaces belong on the back bar as much as the front counter, particularly in a busier bar where more than one drink is being made at once. A section of worktop set into the back bar gives a second working area without crowding the counter itself.

Where a household wants to keep a fridge behind the bar, we design a void sized to the unit they specify — supplied by the client or their supplier — with the clearances the appliance needs built into the cabinetry around it. We do not supply or install refrigeration equipment ourselves, but the carcass is planned so the appliance sits properly within the run rather than looking added on afterwards.

Drawer and cabinet storage beneath the display sections takes care of everything that does not need to be seen — spare glassware, linen, tools and stock that would otherwise clutter an open shelf. This is usually the least photographed part of a back bar and the part that makes daily use of the bar actually work.

Because the back bar sits opposite the counter and is seen from across the room as much as up close, we finish it to the same standard on both fronts — considering how it reads from a seated position at the bar and from further back in the room.

Part of our home bars collection