Designing from Behind the Bar: A Talk by Alexandre Ruas in Hanoi
Great bars aren’t just designed for bartenders, they’re built with them!
Joana
Marketing
content
Tomorrow, July 25th 2025, in Hanoi, Alexandre Ruas, co-founder and CEO of Behind Bars, will be speaking about a topic that’s close to his heart, not just designing bars, but rethinking why we design them and who we’re designing them for.
Alexandre doesn’t come from a background in design. He started out as a bartender, working late nights, navigating tight spaces, and learning, shift by shift, how much the physical setup of a bar affects the energy, the flow, and the people behind it. That experience, and the frustrations that came with it, are what sparked the beginning of Behind Bars over a decade ago. Since then, he and his team have worked on over 500 bar projects in more than 50 countries. But the approach has always stayed the same: start with the bartender. Build with empathy. Design for real people.
In his talk, Alexandre will share how Behind Bars brings together a multidisciplinary team of engineers, architects, and craftspeople to translate the needs of bartenders into thoughtful, high-performance spaces, where the guest feels welcomed, the team feels empowered, and the business performs better as a result. He’ll also walk through a recent project in the U.S. where a cluttered and inefficient bar layout was reimagined in close collaboration with the service team. The transformation led not only to better service and increased output, but also to something often left out of design conversations: a happier, more motivated team behind the bar.
This isn’t about fancy specs or glossy brochures. It’s about listening. It’s about remembering that great bars are built with bartenders, not just for them.
Alexandre’s hope is that this talk sparks new conversations, ones that bring operators, designers, and bartenders closer together, and remind us all that hospitality starts with the people who give it.
