Bar Shift Handoff Card: Who Owns the Tap List

Each shift should have 1 named board owner who updates the tap list and answers for every line matching its handle. At shift change, that owner fills in a half-sheet handoff card with 4 blocks (what changed, what is low, what is on deck, and open items), and the board changes hands when the incoming owner signs.

Below: how to pick the owner, a blank card to copy, what each signature means, a filled example from a 16 tap bar, what the handoff costs in wages, and what changes on a digital board.

Who should update the tap list during a shift?

The board owner updates the tap list: 1 person, named before the shift starts, who answers for every line on the board matching its handle from sign-on to sign-off.

The owner doesn't have to make every change. They can hand a fix to someone else, but they check that it went up, and if it didn't, it's still theirs.

Decide the name before the shift, for example by marking 1 name per shift on the posted schedule. On a 1 bartender shift, the bartender is the owner, and the name still gets written down. For a break, the owner hands the board to a named person out loud ("you've got the board") and takes it back the same way.

Why "whoever's free" fails

"Whoever's free updates the board" leaves the job to nobody in particular, and it breaks down in predictable ways:

• The fix waits until someone is free, and the board matters most in the hours when nobody is.
• 2 bartenders each assume the other one did it. Or both do it, differently: one takes the line down while the other marks it kicked.
• At close, nobody can say whether the board was right at 8 pm, because it was nobody's job to know.

Who makes a good board owner

Pick someone who stays behind the bar all shift. A barback in and out of the walk-in doesn't, and neither does a manager moving between the floor and the office.

The owner should know where prices come from, so a new line goes up from your cost per ounce sheet and not from memory. When you have the people, make the owner someone other than the keg swapper. Then the swap and the board fix can happen at the same time.

What goes on the shift handoff card?

The card is half a sheet of paper, 1 per shift, with 4 blocks: what changed, what is low, what is on deck, and a board owner block with open items and 2 signatures. It's a bar shift handoff checklist for the tap list only. Keg orders, cash and cleaning keep their own paperwork.

TAP BOARD HANDOFF                    Date ________
Shift ending ________                Handing to ________

1. WHAT CHANGED THIS SHIFT
Tap | Was                | Now                | On the board? (Y/N)
____|____________________|____________________|____

2. WHAT IS LOW
Tap | Beer         | Backup cold? (Y/N) | If it kicks, what goes on
____|______________|____________________|__________________________

3. WHAT IS ON DECK
Tap | Next beer    | Full line written? (Y/N) | Keg cold? (Y/N)
____|______________|__________________________|________________

4. BOARD OWNER
Open items (anything not done): _______________________________
Outgoing owner ____________  Time ______
Incoming owner ____________  Time ______

Here is what each block holds and what the next owner gets from it:

The "On the board?" column in block 1 matters most. Y means the owner looked at the board after the change. N is unfinished work, and it goes under open items too.

Block 2 depends on a low mark for each tap, and setting a low keg mark covers how to pick one. Handling the kick itself is its own routine, laid out in what to do when a keg kicks mid-shift.

"Full line written" in block 3 means brewery, beer, style, ABV, pours and prices are on paper, ready to copy. If they aren't, the incoming owner writes the line before the rush. The on deck section guests see is a separate list with its own wording; block 3 is the staff copy.

Write "none" in any block with nothing in it. A blank could mean nothing happened or that nobody checked. "None" tells the next owner that somebody looked.

How to answer "Keg cold?"

Answer from the keg's history, because a keg can feel cold and still be too warm to pour. The Brewers Association's Draught Beer Quality Manual says every keg must be at or below 38°F when served, and that even a few degrees above 38°F can cause pouring problems, especially excessive foaming.

The manual's chill table gives a keg at 44°F 18 hours to reach 38°F, and a keg at 50°F 25 hours. It also says a keg sitting at ambient temperature during delivery or storage can warm from 38°F to 44°F in 4 or 5 hours. So a keg off today's delivery gets an N, and so does one that sat in the hallway all afternoon.

Where should the card live?

The card lives at the board station, the spot behind the bar where the board gets changed, clipped next to the kick card and sub map if you use them. Keep it out of the office. The incoming owner should read it standing where the board and the handles are both in view.

After the second signature, the card goes into a folder under the bar. When someone asks why the board was wrong last Tuesday, that shift's card says who owned it and what they knew. If you want to put a dollar figure on those mistakes, an outdated menu incident log records them one at a time.

Who signs the card, and what does each signature mean?

The outgoing owner signs first and the incoming owner signs second, and the board changes hands at the second signature, whatever the time clock says.

The outgoing signature says every line matches its handle as of that time, and anything that doesn't is under open items. An owner who can't sign that fixes the line before clocking out or writes it down.

The incoming owner reads the card, then checks the board for every tap the card names. A small taste settles a tap that changed this shift. The Brewers Association's Draught Beer Quality Manual puts the same check in its pre-service list for the tower: pour 1 to 3 fl oz and confirm the tap marker matches the beer in the line. Then the incoming owner signs.

That check covers only the taps on the card. The full walk of every handle before doors open is the pre-open check in how often to update your tap list.

If the closer and the opener never overlap, the card waits at the board station overnight and the opener signs before doors.

The manager reads the cards too. When the same open item shows up on 3 cards in a row, the cause usually sits with the manager, such as a delivery that keeps arriving warm or a price nobody set.

What does a filled-in handoff card look like?

Here is a made-up Friday at a 16 tap beer bar, day shift to night shift. The breweries and beers are placeholders, and the times and prices are made up too. Tap 1's "was" price is the old keg's.

TAP BOARD HANDOFF                    Date: Friday
Shift ending: Day                    Handing to: Night

1. WHAT CHANGED THIS SHIFT
Tap 1   Was: Brewery A | Helles lager | 16 oz $7 / 10 oz $4 (old keg)
        Now: same beer, backup keg tapped 3:15 pm,
             16 oz $7 / 10 oz $5 (new keg price)          On board: Y
Tap 16  Was: Brewery B | Dry cider, kicked 2:40 pm
        Now: Brewery C | Beer name | Semi-dry cider | 5.8% | 12 oz $8
                                                          On board: Y
On deck list still shows the semi-dry cider               On board: N

2. WHAT IS LOW
Tap 6   West Coast IPA   Backup cold: N   If it kicks: hazy IPA (on deck)

3. WHAT IS ON DECK
Tap 6   Brewery D | Beer name | Hazy IPA | 6.5% | 16 oz $8 / 10 oz $6
        Full line written: Y    Keg cold: Y
Tap 8   Brewery E | Beer name | Saison | 6.2% | 16 oz $8 / 10 oz $6
        Full line written: Y    Keg cold: N (came in today)

4. BOARD OWNER
Open items: Take the semi-dry cider off the on deck list.
            Tap 8: if the raspberry sour kicks tonight, the line
            comes down. No swap.
Outgoing: day lead     4:55 pm
Incoming: night lead   5:05 pm

The night lead checks tap 1's 10 oz price and tap 16's line on the board, and both match. The on deck list is still wrong, but the card says so, so they sign and make it their first fix. They also know tap 6 is the likely kick, with the hazy IPA cold and its line written, and that tap 8 gets no swap tonight because the saison came in on today's delivery.

Use that as the test for any handoff card: could the incoming owner run the board all shift if the outgoing owner had already gone home? If not, whatever they had to ask about becomes a line on the next card.

How much staff time does the handoff cost?

At 2 handoffs a day and 3 minutes per owner per handoff, the card costs about 12 minutes a day, or $1,314 a year at $18 an hour. Every input below is an example, so swap in your own.

Inputs:

• The outgoing owner spends 3 minutes finishing the card. Changes get written as they happen, so this is the low block, the on deck block and the signature.
• The incoming owner spends 3 minutes reading the card and checking the taps it names.
• 2 handoffs a day: day to night, and close to open.
• $18 an hour, the rate you pay through payroll.

The $18 is an input. For reference, the Occupational Outlook Handbook from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median bartender wage at $16.51 an hour in May 2025, and BLS says that figure includes tips. Use what you actually pay.

Then check what the card has to save to cover those minutes. At $8 a pint, $3.60 a day is 0.45 of a pour. If the card heads off 1 comped or remade $8 pint every 2 days, from a wrong price, a kicked line still on the board or a beer that isn't what the board says, it covers its own wages. Your own incident count tells you whether it does.

How does a digital tap list change the handoff?

A digital board changes who can make the fix and how fast it shows, and the card still carries the parts a screen doesn't know about: which backup is warm and what the outgoing owner planned next.

On a TapDisplay board, the board owner changes the tap list from a phone, a tablet or a computer behind the bar. Each connected screen checks for changes every 30 seconds, so an edit shows within about 30 seconds. Y in the "On the board?" column still means the owner looked at a screen after the edit.

TapDisplay has owner, manager and staff roles. A staff account can edit the menu, including prices, keg levels and marking a beer kicked, so any bartender can be the board owner. Managers and owners also run the screens and the look.

A kicked beer stays on the board, struck through. Keg menus such as a brewery, bar or cidery label it KICKED, and other menus such as coffee or wine say SOLD OUT. The word comes from the business type, so every shift sees the same label.

Keg levels are typed in by hand, so a level is only as current as the last person who checked the keg. Block 2 still carries the low taps and the plan for each.

The activity log records who changed what, and undo reverses a change. Staff can undo their own menu changes. Before signing, the incoming owner can read the shift's changes in the log next to block 1 of the card. An edit in the log that isn't on the card is worth a question while the outgoing owner is still in the building.

When an on deck beer goes up, start typing its name and pick a match from the catalog. It fills in the brewery, style and ABV you haven't entered yet, and the pour prices come from block 3.

The bottom line

Name 1 board owner per shift and make the board that person's job from sign-on to sign-off. At shift change, a half-sheet card with 4 blocks (what changed, what is low, what is on deck, and open items) carries what the next owner needs, and the board changes hands at the second signature. Any question the incoming owner had to ask goes on the next card as a new line.