A pub owner is an important part of his community. He’s respected and well-liked. He provides a place for people to talk, fall in love, play darts or pool. He makes his living by making people happy.
I hate my current job. I look around at the successful bars in my town, and I think maybe that’s something I’d like to do. I know it’s really hard work and costs a big pile of money to get any business going, but I’m intelligent, well-educated and middle-class; surely people with fewer advantages than mine have made a successful go of it.
So, who’s got advice for me? Any Doper tavern-owners out there? Are there books I should read? Venture capitalists I should suck-up to? Government agencies who would help me?
No joke, I had a co-worker who bought a bar and I was amazed (but not as amazed as he was) by the amount of time, money, effort, and paperwork he had to go through to get it going. And this was a relatively easy start-up because he was taking over an existing business. If he had been opening a new bar, it would have been much more difficult.
The end result was that a year later he had lost the business, along with his house and life savings. He also ended up divorced, which may not have been directly caused by money problems but undoubtedly wasn’t helped. He was fortunate in that he kept his day job, so after his bankruptcy, he still had the income to pay for the small apartment where he ended up living.
Don’t get discouraged Fiver! I’m a big fan of bars as well(there is nothing in this world like a friendly neighborhood bar) and plan on owning a bar myself a little later in life. Several friends of mine, past and present, have been bar owners and it’s true that there is quite a lot that goes into it. Contrary to popular belief, most bars are not successful. Try this book, it might answer a lot of questions you have:
bookhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0936894679/o/qid=992535774/sr=2-1/ref=aps_sr_b_1_1/104-1554312-0383162
Also, observe successful bars that you enjoy, see what makes them work and ask a lot of questions…people love to talk about their business. Good luck.
#1 if you don’t work in a bar now either quit your job or get a part time job in a bar BEFORE you do anything else.
Nothing you can read in a book is a substitute for spending a few months behind the bar, cash register, or even the back room. Learn everything you can even how to clean the floor mats. (Do you know where to get those rubber mats?)
#2 Don’t overlook other aspects of the business like liquor license requirements, food license, employees, dealing with vendors, taxes etc. what ifs, like what if people call in sick. Do you know how to maintain an inventory or set up just in time deliveries? I don’t mean to say that you haven’t thought about all this but you would be surprised how many people don’t. They don’t think passed the image of themselves behind the bar.
#3 Get lots of money. I looked into opening a bar once but at the time could not raise the cash. I talked with a sports bar owner that told me start up would be around 100k, and the owner of a popular bar on the Richmond strip told me he needed 300k to start up. That was 8-10 years ago and being much more business savvy today I can tell you that if all you have is the start up money you will find it all but impossible to survive. You will need start up money, operating money, and expansion capital.
#4 You gotta be there. I’ve talked to several bar owners as well as my uncle who has owned bars all my life, they tell me the same thing. A bar is hard to run absentee so unless you like to get ripped off you better plan on being there most of the time.
#5 don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it. I’m assuming that you haven’t owned your own business so if I’m wrong I apologize but here is my basic philosophy
Somebody is successful at it so that means it’s possible for me to do it.
Sorry if I rambled on but business is one of my hot buttons.
Little Nemo: Hmmm…spoke- is a local lawyer. Oh, spoooooke-…?
I for sure will do things differently from your co-worker. For one, I’ll go into it with a partner (my best friend David, most likely), so I won’t bear more than half of the financial burden. And I’d incorporate, and find other investors, so even if we go belly-up I won’t risk personal bankruptcy or losing my house.
Hey, here’s an idea: The Straight Dope Tavern. I wonder what Cecil would charge for the rights?
One of the problems with opening up a new bar is the liquor license. Generally speaking, a city will only allow a limited number of licenses to be held at a time so usually you’ll have to buy one from somebody who already owns one.
And to be really technical, one can’t buy a liquor license. What you do is buy the business and goodwill from the current owner, and then apply to the state to have the old license cancelled and a new license issued to you. Be prepared to jump through a lot of hoops.
Lets not forget being prepared to deal with drunks. Often a new bar opening gets to deal with all the violent troublemakers that got kicked out of all the other bars. I worked as a bouncer for a fairly large bar on Texas infamous Jacksboro highway, and we had eight pair of handcuffs one night and ran out. Wound up using duct tape on some. I came home on more than one occasion with blood all over my clothes, and some of our people had knives pulled on them. THIS crap does not only happen in big clubs.
I went out with some friends to celebrate my wifes birthday a few months back, and some drunk moron suckerpunched one of my friends right in the face as we sat at our table talking. This in a friendly little neighborhood bar.
