When you own a bar or nightclub, you need to look at every single event or holiday as an opportunity to make money. Whenever there is a major holiday, there will be no shortage of people who want to head out to celebrate with copious amounts of food and alcohol. This is partially because people want to celebrate the holiday, but mostly it is because they get a day off of work. For this reason, the night before any major holiday is very busy at bars; and the 4th of July is no exception.

Though most people think about lighting up the grill in their backyard and having a few cold ones from a twelve pack in their fridge rather than going to the bar on the 4th of July, there will still be plenty of people partying; especially the night before. Additionally, there are some things you can do to make your bar or nightclub more enticing to people who would otherwise stay at home, and this can drum up even more business on Independence Day. Here are some ways to capitalize on the 4th of July partiers in your neighborhood.

Grill Food

One of the easiest, and tastiest, ways to bring in a crowd is to have them smell your bar from a mile away; literally. The nose is a very powerful tool for persuasion, so make sure you use it to your full benefit. By grilling food for your customers, you can give them that “backyard” experience and also send out a “calling card” in the form of delicious smells for blocks in every direction. You can either choose to sell various items off of your grill or you could do something cheap like hot dogs and just give them away; the choice is really yours.

Have Fireworks

Fireworks and the 4th of July go together, and using that to your advantage is always a great idea. Your customers have probably already found a local fireworks show to watch on the 4th of July, but having some outside your bar or nightclub on the 3rd can be a great attention grabber. Just make sure you pull the right permits or hire a professional company to handle the fireworks show for you otherwise you can have some trouble on your hands if something goes wrong.

Join a Bar Crawl

Though it may seem counter-intuitive to join a bar crawl with your competing bars, it can actually be a great way to get business for everyone. Bar crawls are a great way to get people who would otherwise want to stay at home on the 3rd of July to head out to hit the bar strip because they are focused on the event rather than sitting on a barstool. Customers will move from bar to bar buying a drink or two until they’ve completed the entire circuit. Hopefully you can manage to be the last bar on the trip, but it is still worth it even if you’re not and you can still capitalize on the 4th of July partiers that want to have a drink poured by a professional bartender.