Website for bars and sports bars 2026: match nights and a members club

The guest asks "what is on tonight?"

A restaurant guest is looking for a menu and a booking. A bar guest is looking for a reason. The search is "sports bar" or "pub" plus the town, or the team’s name and "where can we watch the match", and it happens a few hours before, often in a group where one person is given the job of finding somewhere. Whoever then meets a front page with a photo of a beer and "welcome" closes the tab. Whoever meets tonight’s match, the time, that there is room and what the kitchen serves has their answer.

That means the front page should be a programme, not a presentation. In the bar I built for, the rows run in time order: whatever is next at the top, whether it is a match, a quiz or a live act. The opening hours include today’s exceptions, so "open until 1 tonight" is visible without anyone reading a table. And all of this is the same data the Google profile shows, because the guest who finds the bar on the map should see the same thing as the guest who goes straight to the site. How the profile is managed is in the guide on local SEO.

The matches on the big screen: facts, not logos

The match list is the part of a sports bar’s website that is most often wrong. It is typed by hand on Monday, a match is moved on Wednesday, and on Saturday the guests stand in front of a dark screen. The fix is not typing faster but letting the list be fetched. In the build, seven competitions are read twice a week as data from a listings source, no AI involved, and the new matches arrive hidden. The owner ticks which ones to show and pins at most two at the top. A fetch never touches his ticks; the only thing that hides a chosen match is the source saying it has been moved or cancelled.

What the guest sees is then decided by a single rule shared by every surface: the front page, the match page, the newsletter, the poster and the TV screens all ask the same function. It shows only matches that exist in the list, never anything invented. Played matches drop out, youth football always drops out, and the window rolls: the rest of today plus seven full days, so a Sunday guest sees next week rather than an empty page. If there are fewer than two matches, the nearest within eleven days fill in. Women’s football is a setting, not a decision made in the code.

• Only facts on the card: teams, competition, kick-off and channel, with the source stated. No club crests and no tournament logos; they are trademarks you have no right to use in your marketing.
• Simultaneous matches are all shown. If you have several screens, the guest should not have to guess which one you picked.
• A match page of its own that can be shared. A link in a group chat is how most parties decide, so the page needs the week’s matches as text and an image that looks right in the chat.
• The right to show. Whoever shows matches publicly on premises needs the rights holder’s business or venue subscription; a private subscription does not apply behind the bar. The website does not solve that, but the website should not advertise a match you are not allowed to show.

Events with seats, a waiting list and food at kick-off

A quiz night, a derby night and a Christmas table have the same need: a fixed number of seats and a party that wants to know they have them. The rules in the build are few and strict. If the party fits, the seat is confirmed immediately. If it does not, the party goes on the waiting list and is told so at once, with an email when staff move them up. A party is never split across two confirmations. The cap per booking applies to the web; staff may enter a larger party in the panel, because that is how it works at the door anyway.

What separates a match night from an ordinary booking is the food. Nobody wants to order at half time with the queue to the bar in front of them. So the guest can pre-order dishes when securing the seat and pick a serving time from a short list: at kick-off, at half time or after the match. The order and the seat belong together; if the food cannot be registered, the sign-up is rolled back and the guest gets to choose to come without food instead of believing something was ordered. The kitchen sees the pre-orders grouped by time, so twenty plates at kick-off is a list and not twenty conversations.

If you sell the food through the site this way it is distance selling, and the allergens must then appear next to each dish before the guest sends the order. The rules, and the trap I found in a takeaway checkout, are in the guide on allergens on the menu and website.

The members club: the regular brings the next guest

A bar lives on people who come back, and the only thing in your marketing you own is the list of those who said yes to hearing from you. In the build, the members club and the weekly newsletter are the same thing: whoever joins gets the week’s matches and events by email every week, and the owner writes three lines of his own on top. The member leaves a first name, an email and a mobile number. The number is used at the till to recognise the member, never for texts. The way in is a QR code printed on the table menus, so that signing up happens where the guest is already sitting with time to spare. How the letter gets written every week without becoming a project is in the guide on newsletters.

Referrals are what make the club more than a list. The owner runs one campaign at a time and chooses the length himself, between one and fourteen days, how many friends are required, one to three, and what reward awaits and how long it is valid. There are two kinds. In the safe one, the friend counts only when the till has registered the friend’s first visit, because an invented person cannot come to the bar. In the simpler one, the friend counts when the email is confirmed, and that suits only small rewards, a coffee or a portion of fries, since it can be gamed. When the target is reached, the reward is sent immediately, with a one-time code and a last valid date.

The most important rule in the referral is legal: the friend signs up herself, through the member’s link or QR code. The member never enters a friend’s email or number, because then the bar would be sending advertising to someone who has not consented, which is exactly what section 19 of the Swedish Marketing Act forbids. The rest is fraud protection the guest never notices: a number and an address can only join once, also after leaving the club, disposable addresses are blocked, nobody can refer themselves, and too many sign-ups from the same link or the same network are flagged for the owner instead of being counted. At the till the guest shows a QR code and staff scan it; nobody types phone numbers at the counter. What you do with the members who go quiet is in the guide on winning back customers.

Alcohol law draws the line for the letter

This is where a bar differs from every other business I build for. Marketing of alcohol to consumers must, under chapter 7, section 1 of the Swedish Alcohol Act, show particular moderation. It may not be intrusive or unsolicited, may not urge people to drink, and may not target or depict people under 25. A weekly letter with matches, quizzes and the kitchen stays within that without effort. What needs care is drink offers: "two for one at half time" in an email to the whole list is a different thing from a sign on the premises. My stance in the build is simple: the letter sells the evening, not the beer, and a line about drink is never what the letter is about. This is my reading of the law, not legal advice; if you are unsure about a campaign, ask the municipality’s licensing unit before it goes out.

Table booking and takeaway: only if you want them

The most instructive decision in the build was what was left switched off. Table booking with a floor plan and a takeaway checkout were ready, and the owner wanted neither at launch: the bar fills through the door, and a booking button nobody tends only creates disappointed guests. Both remain in the code behind one switch each, off by default. Only the exact word turns a feature on; a typo gives the safe state, off. No guest and no member of staff sees a single button until the switch is turned. That way a bar can start with what actually fills the room and turn on the rest the day it is needed, without a new build. A restaurant often does the opposite, and why booking is the core there is in the guide on AI for restaurants and cafés.

Checklist: what a bar website must do

• Tonight’s programme at the top, in time order: match, quiz, live act, and today’s opening hours with exceptions included.
• A match list that is fetched, where the owner chooses what is shown and played matches disappear by themselves.
• Events with seats and a waiting list, and pre-ordered food for a chosen time on match nights.
• A members club with a QR code on the menu, a weekly letter with the week’s programme, and referrals where the friend signs up herself.
• Moderation in the letter: the evening in focus, never urging people to drink, nothing aimed at the young.
• Switches for what you do not run yet, so booking and takeaway can be turned on without a new build.

When I build for a bar this is the foundation: the programme at the top, the matches as data, events with seats and food, and a members club that grows through the regulars. What it costs is listed openly under services, and you can read who builds it under about me.