Let's open a bar!

Around here, the real trashy places are the ones that seem to be directly involved in dealing. They get shut down because of local nuisance laws (as in, they observe enough drug dealing, they padlock your place). There are also nightspots that have a reputation for being able to obtain drugs from the clientele, usually referred to as coke and pokes. They wind up going before the liquor boards for review, and wind up changing owners a lot (on paper mostly).

I found an earlier thread that discussed what makes a bar successful.

I know a couple of people who own bars or restaurants in Manhattan and Hoboken. Or I know a lot of the staff at places I visit frequently.

I’ve noticed a couple of things:

It’s important to have some reliable key people you trust. You can’t be there 24-7 and you can’t watch everything constantly. The bar owners I know seem to have a core group of managers, bartenders and wait staff that prove themselves to be competent and trustworthy.

The biggest problems seem to come from financial partners. I see a lot of cases where one partner ends up suing the other or you have some annoying minority stakeholder coming into the place and disrupting operations, thinking they’re Gordon Ramses or whoever.

A large portion of your staff are going to be crazy wack-jobs. Most of them aren’t bar staff because they’re putting themselves through Harvard.

Running a bar is a business, not a fraternity house. Fraternity houses work by having a bunch of guys pool their money together so they can buy some kegs and drink all day. Usually someone ends up on the short end of that transaction as various randoms show up to glom beer and everyone looses track of who paid and who didn’t. If you run a bar as a fraternity, that someone who ends up short is you.

I used to work with a guy who owned a bar near Andrews AFB. He didn’t buy the bar, he worked there under the previous owner who turned over responsibility upon retirement.

The place eventually burned to the ground after over 50 years in existence and the propery is still just a fenced-in bare slab.

The problem with that is that your regulars get tired of being solicited for money by coked out prostitutes and go elsewhere. Then your place becomes a Mecca for drug addicts. Dealers from exotic places like Detroit start hanging out. Next come the fights, shooting, and stabbings and cops hanging outside your place day and night. Anyone thinking of drinking goes somewhere else for fear of a DWI.

Then some chick ODs in your bathroom or drives home coked up and kills someone and their estate sues the bejesus out of you. Your insurance won’t cover because of the criminal activity going on at your place.

You didn’t know cocaine was being sold at your place, you want to tell the jury? They will laugh you out of court when you claim that you are the only one in town that doesn’t know that your place is a crack house.

Bad idea all around.

Hey, I never said it was a viable long term business plan :smiley:

But it would be fun while it lasted. :slight_smile:

I can’t speak for over there, but over here the joke is: “Anyone can have a small fortune running a bar in Thailand. You just have to start out with a large fortune.”

Many guys have followed their dream of opening a bar in Thailand only to lose everything and wonder forever what went wrong. Some guys think the place will be somewhere where their buddies can go and hang out, but their buddies already have their regular hangouts, and you need to give them a special reason to switch other than your friendship. I know thievery is a problem everywhere, but here it is so bad that I know owners who have resigned themselves to accepting it at a certain level. They’ll let it be known that X amount of money can go missing from the till, but if it surpasses that, then heads are going to start rolling. Then there are the bribes that every owner must pay to the police. There are the silent Thai partners you must often have, as many businesses cannot be majority foreign-owned by law, and you have to watch out for what those guys get up to, and many a farang (Western) bar owner has been bumped off in disputes with their Thai partners, with the police ignoring the whole matter because a) it’s just business, and b) it was just a foreigner anyway.

Some guys do make a go of it over here, but they almost always have brought years of bar experience with them from their home country.

Ahh yes, the famous Egyptian chef, Gordon Ramses.

New business owners have a high rate of failure. You need to have financial backing, money to burn, or a large line of credit that will carry you through the first few years. You are not going to have the next new idea and win out of the gate. The odds are against you.

You are going to lose money and essentially subsidize the business while it develops.

Here is an interesting site on new business failure and the timelines and reasons:

I worked in a Greek restaurant when I was young, and have spent a great deal of time observing my local bars. So my advice is probably mostly worthless, however, here it is.

You cannot just hire a manager and sit back and watch the show. You have to **be **the manager and plan to spend a large number of hours there, every day of the week, at least while the business gets up and running, the first 5 years.

Don’t hire your relatives or friends to be employees. Just don’t. Be professional, if you really have professional friends or relatives give them a shot at your own risk.

Employees will assume that you are making money hand over fist and see that as a reason to skim a little here and there. Stay on top on your cash flow.

Install a POS system right out of the gate. Not a Piece of Shit, a Point of Sale computerized cash register system that tracks inventory, what items are being bought, and tells you what items to remove from stock or menu. This is a very valuable tool. Essential. And once your employees realize the capabilities of the system, they will realize that they can’t steal for long without you or another employee discovering it.

Location, Location, Location! Just being on the wrong side of the street can make a huge difference. If you are buying a bar that someone else has failed at, really take some time to look into the ‘why’.

And protect your assets with a LLC before you even start. Only fools have a sole proprietorship. Creditors can come after anything you own, your house, your cars, anything if you do not protect yourself within a LLC or full corporation.

According to that website, religious organizations have the best success rate after 5 years. Hmmmm, how to combine bar and church.

They already did. The NFL made 9 billion last season.

Also do your research for your location.

Liability insurance can be quite steep. Oregon requires a minimum of $300,000 policy.

Liquor license cost vary widely by state. And usually require the approval of the local governments. If you have any felony convictions you aren’t getting a permit. If Miss Grundy didn’t like the old bar, and complains loudly, you might not get a permit for your new bar. Look into the liquor permit possibilities before you buy.

In states where gambling is legal, video poker machines can be the draw that brings in customers. However, there is another big pile of cash that you need to have on hand in an escrow account. You HAVE to be able to pay off if someone hits big on the machines. $600 per hit on a lottery ticket and $1200 on the machines. And sometimes they will all hit at once and you have a big payout day.

The lottery will yank your permit and machines if you can’t pay right on the spot. No excuses. I am not sure but I have heard that the escrow account is $75,000, seems too high but I don’t know. May be and extra zero, but I do know that my local bar sometimes pays out thousands of dollars on the odd day when the machines are hitting.

Hidden costs will kill a start up.

I always felt opening a bar is like putting on a play. You need the creativity to write the play, but you also need to finance it, find a venue, get the right actors for the part, along with handling all the paperwork, accounting, and marketing. Only focusing on one of these will cause a disaster.

Apropos of nothing, Let’s open a bar! can be rearranged to say Let’s rob an ape!

So now that we’ve settled on a name, what’s our next step?

Opening a bar is like trying to get Google+ to be popular!

I lease and sell commercial retail space and I dread leasing calls from people that want to open bars and clubs in retail spaces. Most are enthusiastic tire kickers who don’t have a clue.

Ring:

Astro speaking

Caller: I’m interested in that big building on RT 14 with your sign on it

Astro: Oh yes! Nice property. It’s 10,000 sq ft and they’re asking $ 5,500 per month.

Caller: When can I get inside to see it?

Astro: Well… let’s make sure the zoning and use works for you. What did you want to do.

Caller: A nightclub

Astro: Zoning will work but it only has 40 parking spaces, that’s nowhere close to what you would need for a nightclub that size per city occupancy codes.

Caller: Oh… ummm…when can I get in to see it?

Astro: Let me ask you do you run a nightclub right now or is this a start up? The owner will ask me this question.

Caller: I’ve got a friend with money he told me to find some spaces. I would manage the club.

Astro: So … a startup. What’s your target rent amount? This is $ 66,000 per year.

Caller: Not sure, just looking for spaces right now.

Astro: Let me talk to the owner and see if he’s OK with a startup nightclub use and I’ll be back to you.

Caller: So when can I get in?

You gotta have food, too.

Theme the bar.

A Mad Men theme–60s-sh furniture & art.

Irish pub.

Fetish Bar–if all the waitresses wear fetish nun outfits, you could call the joint Bar Nun (pun intended).