A menu people talk about
Rooms this practice has built made the World’s 50 Best list nine years running and became national names within a year of opening. Short menus, strong point of view, drinks the press can’t ignore.
Beverage consultancy · Neat AI · New York
Menus that win awards. Systems the team can run without you.
Drinks By Neat is two practices under one operator. Beverage programs for hotels, restaurants, bars, and drinks brands — and Neat AI, the guest and staff systems built for the same rooms. The proof is public: a program that reached #25 in the World’s 50 Best Bars.
World’s 50 Best Bars #25 · two-time Tales of the Cocktail nominee
#25 in the world
World’s 50 Best Bars, 2018 — a program built and run from behind the bar
9 straight years
on the World’s 50 Best lists, 2015–2023 — the only Cypriot bar ever listed
2× Tales Top 10
Spirited Awards nominations in a single year — Cocktail Bar & Bar Team, 2018
3 continents
programs delivered in New York, Austin, Nicosia, and Abu Dhabi
The practice
Two desks. One standard.
The drinks have to work at volume. The messages guests send have to get answered. Both are operations problems — and both get built so the house owns them when we leave.
Beverage
Programs with a public record
Opening menus, refreshes, prep labs, RTD lines, brand advocacy, retainers. Fixed scope, clear timelines, every spec handed over. Six engagements →
Neat AI
Guest and staff systems
Guest communication, booking and inquiry, a staff knowledge copilot, hotel upsell, loyalty and feedback, analytics. Written in the house voice. The six modules →
What you get
Three things, delivered every time.
Margins that behave
Every recipe costed. Pour-cost targets on every drink. Batching, clarification, and prep workflows treated as a margin strategy — consistency at volume is what pays for the technique.
A team that owns it
Spec books, SOPs, and train-the-trainer built into every engagement. The program is finished when your team runs it without us — and you own every document we make.
Selected work
The record is public.
These aren’t claims — they’re rankings and awards you can look up, earned in four cities on three continents.
Lost & Found Drinkery
From a side-street twenty-seater to #25 in the world.
Head bartender and founding-team member. Built the bar program that ranked #25 in the World’s 50 Best Bars and earned two Tales of the Cocktail Top 10 nominations in the same year — the first Cypriot bar ever to make either list.
Nicosia, CY2014 — 2022
Here Nor There / In Plain Sight
A national name within twelve months.
Consulted for Austin’s two-room powerhouse — the hidden-entry flagship and its aperitivo sister bar. Audited the menu for prep efficiency, fixed COGS, trained the team, and helped develop the new menu and its techniques.
Austin, TX2022 — 2023
Vine Bar
An ambitious menu that survived a full room.
Created the Explorers menu for a New York bar ready to push past the expected — concept to nightly service. Developed the drinks, wrote the specs, and trained the team so the ambition held up under volume.
New York, US2024 — 2025
Tocayo
Best New Restaurant, with the bar to match.
Bar program and cocktail menu from concept through opening at one of Nicosia’s most ambitious dining rooms. Short, opinionated, paired to the food — not to a trend.
Nicosia, CY2020 — 2022
Casa de Cuba
A rum program built for volume, in a market that doesn’t default to it.
Cocktail and rum program for an Abu Dhabi venue trading on a deep Caribbean catalog. A list that reads as a single editorial — climate-aware and designed for service volume.
Abu Dhabi, AE2019
Beverage engagements
Six engagements. Fixed scope, clear timelines.
Every project is scoped and timelined before it starts. You’ll know the full cost up front — no discovery-phase billing.
Opening Beverage Program 12–16 wks
Concept through 90 days post-opening, for new hotel bars and ground-up openings. Menu, prep lab, suppliers, training, opening-week support.
Program Refresh 6–10 wks
For venues where the drinks have gone stale or the numbers have drifted. Audit, new menu, costing pass, team retraining.
Prep-Lab Design & Build 8–14 wks
For groups and hotels ready to centralize prep. Equipment specs, architect-ready layouts, HACCP protocols, team training.
White-Label & RTD Development 14–24 wks
Bottled-cocktail lines from recipe to first production run — shelf stability, sourcing, co-packer introductions.
Brand Advocacy & Education Per campaign
For drinks brands: trade education courses, bartender training, signature brand cocktails, and activations.
Advisory Retainer Monthly
Senior eyes on your program, monthly — for internal beverage teams that are competent but want a sparring partner.
Neat AI
The inbox, the desk, the floor.
Six modules for hotels and restaurants that already have a point of view — and need systems that speak it when the GM isn’t in the thread.
Guest Communication
Answers in the house voice: hours, menus, amenities, dietary notes. Escalates what a bot shouldn’t touch.
Booking & Inquiry
Captures inquiries, routes reservations, follows up on holds. The inbox stops being a graveyard.
Staff Knowledge Copilot
Specs, SOPs, allergen notes, and house standards at the bartender’s shoulder.
Hotel Upsell
F&B and experience offers at the right moment in the stay — written like a concierge, not a banner.
Loyalty & Feedback
Post-stay and post-serve loops that catch the complaint before it becomes a review.
Analytics
What guests asked, what staff needed, where service leaks. Reporting a GM can read in five minutes.
Making a good drink is expected. The job is everything else.Andreas Sanidiotis
Notes
Operators, and the technique they hire.
Buyer’s guides on cost, openings, and margins, next to methods precise enough to replicate. Written from the floor, not the deck.
Operators · Aug 2026
The Variance Report
Pour cost only sees what was rung up. Variance counts what actually left the shelves.
Operators · Jul 2026
Opening a Hotel Bar: The 16-Week Timeline
Week by week from concept to the 90-day window — how award-winning hotel bars get scheduled.
Technique · Oct 2023
The Art of the Japanese Hard Shake
Kazuo Uyeda, Hidetsugu Ueno, Shingo Gokan — and a step-by-step guide.
FAQ
Questions, answered.
How does an engagement start?
With a call. We talk through the concept, the space, the timeline, and what you actually need — then you get a fixed-scope proposal. No discovery-phase billing, no open-ended retainers unless you want one.
Do you only work in New York?
Based in New York, built for anywhere. The portfolio spans Austin, Nicosia, and Abu Dhabi. For projects outside NYC, the work is structured around intensive on-site blocks with remote development between them.
How is pricing structured?
Fixed project fee, scoped to the engagement — opening program, refresh, prep-lab build, or RTD development. Advisory retainers are monthly. Neat AI is scoped the same way: a proposal before anything starts. You’ll know the full cost before we start.
What is Neat AI, exactly?
A practice for hotels and restaurants: guest communication, booking and inquiry, a staff knowledge copilot, hotel upsell, loyalty and feedback, and analytics. Built to the house voice and knowledge — not a generic chatbot parked on the site. The six modules.
Who owns the recipes and specs?
You do. Every recipe, costing sheet, prep workflow, and training document is handed over at the end of the engagement. The bar shouldn’t depend on the consultant after the consultant leaves.
Can you work with our existing team?
That’s half the job. Technique transfer, service standards, and menu storytelling are built into every engagement — the program is designed to the team you have, then the team is trained up to the program.
Do we need a prep lab or expensive equipment?
No. Programs are designed to your space, your volume, and your staffing reality. Equipment gets specified only when the math justifies it — a rotovap that doesn’t pay for itself in menu impact stays in the catalog.
When should we bring you in for an opening?
Twelve to sixteen weeks before doors open is the comfortable window — enough time for concept, R&D, sourcing, build-out coordination, and proper training. Tighter timelines are workable; the call will tell us.
Next step
Opening, refreshing, or wiring the guest side in the next twelve months?
Fifteen minutes on a call usually answers whether this is a fit — and what the room actually needs.
Direct: sani@drinksbyneat.com · replies within one business day