Hi everyone,
I've made my sim open a small pub where he's going to be the bartender. However, I've seen that no one orders drinks when he's bartending.
His business has a ticket machine (that charges only 3$/hour), a poker table, a tv, a stereo, an arcade machine, a dart board, a vending machine and, of course, a bar with counters and stools.
The problem is that, in 5 days, he only sold 1 drink. All the customers spent all day playing poker or ordering food from the vending machine (and sometimes watching tv, dancing, and playing darts).
Is there a way to make customers order drinks more often? Of course I want them to interact with the others objects I've put for them, but I really want them to drink at the bar more often.

May I ask which bar you are using?

I'm not sure if I can help, as I've very little experience of playing bars in owned lots, but I think it's possible that some bars advertise more than others; i.e. they are more attractive to Sims than others. Actually I think the only place I've played a bar in an owned lot is in Club Dante, and I seem to recall Malcolm Landgraab's employee had very little to do at the bar; his wages considerably exceeded the revenue from drink sales!

Generally in unowned venues, my bars do seem to get customers, but one of my nightclubs has both a juice bar and a coffee bar. I often see the bartender there standing with nothing to do, while the barista at the other side of the room is worked off his feet. So maybe the other things in your pub are just more attractive than the bar.

Apparently if you leave out the poker table Mrs Crumplebottom will frequent the bar. XD

Drinks fulfill hunger, so they have to be hungry in order to order them. If you want them to buy the drinks to fulfill hunger, get rid of the vending machine.

I think from memory I used the customer selector to set my bar to restaurant, this makes it so sims show up hungry and bar drinks help with hunger. I made sure my bar is the first thing they come across when they come in, with fun things at the back. You do not want vending machines, take those out.

I do use simwardrobes buffet but I only do that later in the day when my bar tender is hungry and needs a break. That charges $15 per plate taken and needs no staff so its a win win. Arriving hungry means they clear that plate up quickly too. Only need to be served and cleared away.
I also have a ticket machine set to average which I think is about $18. It might be more at this point since it's a level 10 business. My bar is busy and the business makes a good profit.

Customer selector. Business type is the only thing I use on this as most other options are rather confusing. Under there you can set the need you want sims to fill on your lot. In this case set it to restaurant so they arrive hungry. They will be pushed to find something to fill that need, which is why you want only your bar available and no vending machines. http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...pic,5906.0.html

Thank you all for the replies!
It's not the first time I run a bar in TS2 and in my other save file I definitely had a lot more customers even if I put things like the pool table, the poker table and even the vending machine.
I will remove the vending machine for now and change the bar to see if things get better!
Thank you all again!

Update: I removed the vending machine and used the customer selector to set the business type as restaurant.
Things got much better. They still love the poker table the most but now I've got many more customers at the bar.
Thank you everyone!