The Best Bars for Phone Charging Stations (and the Ones to Skip)
JB Charging Team
The best bars for phone charging stations stay open past midnight, keep people for 2 hours or more, and fill up with people whose chargers are somewhere else. Often the bartender is already charging phones. The name, the look and the drink list don't matter.
- Score first: bars open until 1am or later, sports bars on game days, college bars, and bars in tourist, beach or boardwalk districts or near arenas and hotels.
- Pitch last: pubs that close by 11, restaurant bars where people only wait for a table, quick-service counters, chains that need corporate approval, and bars that already host a charging station (ask when that deal renews).
Many operators start with bars, where the gap between a busy station and an idle one is widest. Below: the math, a Friday-night scorecard, and the pitch.
Same J8, four bars
One J8 Pro in four hypothetical bars, on these assumptions:
- Assume the station costs about $950: one J8 Pro from the 5-pack ($4,499.95 list price at the time of writing) plus its share of the bundle's $245 shipping, as shown at checkout.
- Say each rental brings in $5, between a half hour ($3) and an hour ($6) at the default price.
- Say the bar takes a 10% share (a hypothetical, not a standard rate). Any venue share comes out of your 80%, so you keep 70%.
- Say your costs run $15 a month for the odd replacement bank (about $20 each) and fuel. Card processing is inside our 20%.
- Assume no screen ads. You keep 100% of any you sell, but you find the advertisers, and no sale is promised.
| Hypothetical bar | Rentals a month | Renters pay | You keep (70%) | After $15 costs | Months to cover $950 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quiet pub, empty by 10 | 2 | $10 | $7 | −$8 | Never |
| Neighborhood pub, closes at 11 | 8 (about 2 a week) | $40 | $28 | $13 | About 73 (6 years) |
| Sports bar, busy on game days | 25 (about 6 a week, mostly game days) | $125 | $87.50 | $72.50 | About 13 |
| Late-night bar in a tourist district | 60 (2 a night) | $300 | $210 | $195 | About 5 |
Same machine, same price. At 8 rentals a month it takes about 6 years to cover its cost, twice the length of the 3-year limited warranty; at 60, about 5 months. At 8 rentals, closing that gap on price alone would take $37.50 a rental. Choosing the bar is the biggest lever you control.
The bottom row is the bar you're scouting for. It's the top of the range, not something to count on, and you won't know where a bar lands until a station has run there for a month. Size your first order so you could live with the top two rows, and add what the table leaves out: your time, insurance, slow months and taxes.
What the best bars for phone charging stations have in common
They stay open late. In our experience, most bar rentals start in the evening and late at night. A bar that closes at 11 misses the late end of that window, when batteries are lowest and the ride home still depends on a phone.
People stay for hours. A power bank only helps a guest who stays a while, away from an outlet. Trivia, live music and pool hold people for 2 or 3 hours; a football Sunday holds them for three games.
The crowd is far from its own charger. Regulars who live 5 minutes away go home to charge. Visitors, students and game-day fans can't.
The bartender is already charging phones. A power strip on the back bar with 3 phones on it is demand you can see, and your opening line.
The Friday-night scorecard
List 10 to 15 "score first" bars near you. Google Maps shows each one's hours, Popular times and, for many places, how long people usually stay (Google explains the data): enough to pick the 3 you visit this Friday. Score 4 to 6 bars for every station you own, since some will say "not now". Taprooms, wine bars and hotel bars use the same card.
Go at each bar's peak: around 10pm Friday for most, the week's biggest game for a sports bar, a summer Saturday for a beach bar. Buy a drink, stay 30 minutes, and score each row 0, 1 or 2.
| Signal | 2 points | 1 point | 0 points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekend closing time | 1am or later | Around midnight | 11pm or earlier |
| How long people stay | 2+ hours | About an hour | One drink, then gone |
| The room at its peak (10pm Friday, or kickoff at a sports bar) | Hard to find a seat | Half full | A few regulars |
| Where the crowd is from | Visitors, students, game-day fans | Mixed | Down the street |
| Phones behind the bar | Most busy nights | Now and then | Never |
| How people get home | Rideshare, taxis, transit | Mixed | Almost all drive |
| A spot for the station | Visible, on the restroom path or by the door, near an outlet | Workable with a stand or wall mount | Hidden, in an exit path, or needs an extension cord |
| Who can say yes | Owner or GM on site | Owner, through the GM | Corporate |
Add it up out of 16:
- 12 to 16: pitch this week.
- 8 to 11: pitch next. Don't let a station wait in a box for a perfect bar; one live in a 9 beats one in your garage.
- Under 8: skip for now, and re-score seasonal bars in season.
A 0 on the spot rules a bar out, and so do 0s on both closing time and the room. A high score tells you where to pitch, not who will say yes: each bar decides, and you find, sign and look after your own venues.
Tiebreaker: the block. Pick the bar on a strip with room for two or three of your stations. Banks go back to any JB Charging station, so bar-hoppers can return them along the strip, and one restock run covers the block.
While you're there:
- Walk the restroom path, find the wall outlet, and check your phone's signal there. The stations we sell run on built-in 4G, with Wi-Fi only as a backup, and basements can be weak.
- Check the parking. A full lot means drivers. Little parking, a rideshare pickup spot or a transit stop means riders.
- Ask the bartender 3 questions during a lull, and tip well:
"Do people ask you to charge their phones much?"
"When does it get busy, and when does it clear out?"
"Who decides things like this, and when are they usually in?"
That fills in 3 rows and gives you a name for Tuesday.
Who decides, and when to catch them
| Who | What they can do | When to catch them |
|---|---|---|
| Closing bartender | Can't sign, but knows phones per night and can tell the owner "we need this" | Friday, during a lull |
| Bar manager or GM | Picks the spot; at many independents, says yes | Tuesday to Thursday, 2 to 4pm |
| Owner | Signs | Same window, or ask the GM which day |
| Group or corporate office | Approves every location, with its own insurance rules | Slow; get a champion at the bar first |
Scout Friday; pitch Tuesday, after lunch and before happy hour.
The pitch: what to say to a bar owner
Open with what you saw, not what you sell:
"Hi, I'm [name]. I run phone charging stations around [area]. Friday night there were three phones charging behind your bar. A station by your restrooms takes care of that: a guest taps a card, takes a charged power bank and keeps their phone. Your staff stop holding phones, and it costs you nothing but the power from one outlet. Can I show you? It takes 30 seconds."
If another row scored higher, swap the third sentence:
| Strongest row | Opening line |
|---|---|
| Rides home | "At close on Saturday, half your crowd was on the sidewalk booking rides, some on their last few percent." |
| Game days | "On Sunday, every table was on scores for three games straight. By the late game, phones were dying." |
| Visitors | "Half your Friday crowd is staying at the hotels down the street, and their chargers are in their rooms." |
Plug the station in as you start, so it's online for a real rental with your own card. While the bank slides out, cover the rest: cables built in, its own cell connection, staff only point the way, you keep it stocked. Then ask one question with a day in it:
"Can I bring it in Thursday afternoon and set it up by the restrooms?"
Lead with guests and staff, and have your answer on the share ready for when the owner raises it. If the owner is out, leave a pitch card and send the manager our page on phone charging for bars and restaurants. The full first meeting is in how to pitch a venue.
When they say yes, send the venue agreement from the portal so everything, including any share, is in writing before install day. On the day, set the price, run a test rental with the manager, give the closing bartenders the staff code for their free daily rental, and leave pitch cards behind the bar.
What bar owners push back on
"We already charge phones behind the bar." Then the demand is proven. Ask how many a night and where they sit: usually a power strip by the ice well, three identical black phones, and a bartender playing coat check at last call. The station gives the bartender the bar back.
"Who fixes it at 1am on a Saturday?" You do, and the portal often tells you first by flagging a station that's offline or low on charged banks. Set a restock day with the manager and give the closing bartender your number. Renters get help from us through the machine, the app or the receipt.
Guests who won't pay, staff time, walk-offs, lithium, Wi-Fi and "what's in it for us" play out the same in a bar as anywhere: see 12 venue objections and how to answer them.
Set it up for a bar: spot, machine, price, season
Spot. Put it just past the last stool on the restroom path, on a stand or wall mount, or by the entrance; on the counter only at a dead end where nobody sits or sets down a drink. Stay out of exit paths and plug straight into a wall outlet. The J8 Pro needs about 9 by 9 inches and stands about 16 inches tall, plus the sign on top. Back it to a wall or into a corner, and agree with the manager how it's secured.
Machine. A J8 Pro fits almost every bar. If one keeps running out of charged banks on busy nights, or the bar has a rooftop and a downstairs, add a second J8 rather than a tower. Save the J24 Pro (24 banks, about $3,550 with freight as shown at checkout, at list price at the time of writing) for rooms that hold a few hundred people: on the table's assumptions, it needs about 3.3 to 3.5 times a J8's rentals to cover its cost on the same schedule as the sports-bar or late-night row.
Price. The default is $3 per 30 minutes with a $20 daily maximum, and you set it per station. Some of the busiest late-night stations on our network charge more, because at 1am the alternative is a dead phone, not a cheaper rental. In the late-night row, taking each rental from $5 to $7 lifts you from $195 to about $279 a month after costs if rentals hold at 60, and still comes out ahead as long as you keep more than about 43 of the 60. Raise it once busy nights have proven the demand, one change at a time, for a full month.
Season. Beach and boardwalk bars are summer businesses: score them on a summer Friday, have the station in by spring, and expect slow winters. College bars go quiet over winter break and summer, so score them in October, not July. Judge a football bar on Sundays from September to early February.
After 30 days, check it against your keep line
Before install, write down your keep line: the monthly rentals at which the station covers itself in a time you can live with. On the table's assumptions, about 27 a month covers $950 in a year. Once it's live, Venue Insights in the portal tracks the venue's 7- and 30-day revenue.
If a bar that scored 13 is under its keep line after a full, normal month online and stocked, try a better spot inside the bar first. If that doesn't fix it, run the 30-day relocation test and be ready to move on. A scorecard is an educated guess. A month of rentals is evidence.
Next step
Before you buy anything, score three bars this Friday, then bring the scorecards to a call with our team. We'll go through them with you, weak rows included. Choosing and signing the bars stays with you. Current prices for the J8 Pro and J24 Pro are on the stations page.
Examples are illustrative only, not a forecast or a typical result. What a station earns depends on the venue, placement, pricing, local demand, and how actively you run it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What kind of bar is best for a phone charging station?
Bars that stay open past midnight, keep people for 2 hours or more, and draw a crowd that's far from its own chargers: late-night bars, sports bars on game days, college bars, and bars in tourist, beach or boardwalk districts. In our experience, most bar rentals start in the evening and late at night, so a bar that's still busy at 1am is open during the hours that count. Score it on a Friday night before you judge it by its name or look.
Are restaurants good places for phone charging stations?
Usually not on their own. If guests wait 20 minutes for a table and leave after dinner, few need a power bank. A restaurant whose bar runs late and fills up for games is different. Score it like a bar, and put the station on the restroom path or by the host stand, where guests can see it.
Do I need a written agreement with the bar?
Yes. Put the terms in writing before install day: any revenue share, how long the station stays, and how either side ends it. The Distributor Portal lets you send a venue agreement to the owner, so the paperwork can go out the afternoon they say yes.
How much should I give a bar for hosting a charging station?
There's no standard figure. Many bars host a station without taking a share, as an amenity for their guests. Others ask for a share of rental revenue, which you negotiate. You set the share per station in the portal, and it comes out of your 80%, not JB Charging's 20%. Lead with what the station does for guests and staff, have your answer ready for when the owner raises the share, and put whatever you agree in writing before install.
What happens if a bar customer walks off with a power bank?
If a bank isn't back within the return window (24 hours by default), the renter's card is charged a non-return fee ($40 by default) and the renter keeps the bank. You set both per station, and the bar is never charged. Guests can also return a bank to any other JB Charging station, which is one reason to place your next station a few doors down.
Does a charging station in a bar need the bar's Wi-Fi?
No. The stations we sell have built-in 4G, use Wi-Fi only as a backup, and plug into a standard wall outlet. Check your phone's signal at the spot you plan to use, since basements and concrete rooms can be weak.
