This is good advice for any new business. Thinking you will just be able to stop by for a few hours to do some ordering and bookeeping while calling yourself a business owner is a fun fantasy but not practical unless you have extremely deep pockets.
I play a jazz gig every week in one that fits the OP to a T. Craft beers, whisky (and the lesser spirits), great wine list, all in very regular rotation. 40% NO2 push 
No TVs, hip but stylish & understated decor, suitably dim lighting, some great couches, puzzles and board games. A minimalist patio out back with a canopy, some hop vines, and casual iron furniture. Closed Sun and Mon, and open 4 - 12ish the rest.
No real food options. He does only warm nuts, cheese & landjaeger mixed plates (with figs & apricots!) and carry-in pizza from the place next door.
It’s 3-4 blocks from the college bars, on the quiet corner of downtown by Monona Bay & the hospitals. Sounds like a disaster, but he found a great niche. It’s only really ever packed during the peak of the Fri/Sat early rush, but a nice steady clientele keeps it around 20-30% full almost all the rest of the time.
I’ve been gigging there over two years and business has just slowly grown. I’ve always figured that it’s really about the fact that it’s known for it’s casual/hip aesthetic, but once you get in there, you realize it’s all hip and cool because he gives a damn about it and the quality and vibe. It’s not an affectation, it’s a byproduct of having a sense of artistry and really caring about the core product, the environment and the patrons.
The fact that it’s a 10 minute stumble along the the Bay from my house doesn’t hurt. Although I don’t recommend trying to do it with a string bass. That was hard.
If this means not having any soft drinks, I think that’s a misstep. It’s standard for bars to have Coke, lemon-lime soda, and maybe ginger ale as mixers, and I can’t imagine why one would not sell them separately. A designated driver or non-drinking friend would certainly appreciate the option.
Something I just thought of. Watch Bar Rescue on Spike TV (episodes available online). It’s like Kitchen Nightmares for bars. I don’t agree with a lot of what the host says, but you’ll get to see common problems in various bars.
Portion control cannot be stressed enough (per my bar owning friends). All it takes is one bartender mixing “good” drinks to wreck profit.
My current favorite beer bar. One of the big headaches is dealing with the liquor control officials. Everything is a fight. Running a promotion is viewed as encouraging consumption.
It’s not portion control so much as inventory control. The profit margin on the liquor is very high, so the problem isn’t really a little over pouring so much as never charging and outright stealing. Based on total consumption you can get a good estimate of how much the gross should have been for a night.
The “high profit margin” is kind of missing the point. Liquor is the vast majority of a bars product. It HAS to charge that much because if it does not, there is no money to pay the bills. Yes they pay pay $0.50 for a bottle of beer an sell it for $2.50, but of that 2.50:
.50 in labor costs
.50 in facilities costs
.50 for the cost of the drink
.50 in misc bullshit
if you are lucky .50 in actual profit.
So your giveaway scenario is the most damaging, but even a consistent overpour to $0.65 in cost of product will erode 30% of your realized profits.
Someone once asked on this board about “comping” a drink now and then or dealing with waste. You can easily rig any POS system with “comp” or “waste” payment methods.
By doing this you give your staff some flexibility while still being able to say "Hey john, you are giving away alot of freebies, can you dial it back to no more than X per night or let me know how we can make this work without making the customers unhappy. You also have a tighter inventory because you now know where the margin is going. you make comping without documenting it no different than theft and deal with staff accordingly.
I know some bars operate on this principle, but it’s usually a remote management situation in hotels or chains. I’m not suggesting that constant overpouring should be tolerated, but that you can spend excessive time and cost in portion control in a small owner-operated bar. Your pricing will more likely be based on weekly or monthly gross than trying to apportion an amount per drink. Outside of the high end places, you’ll sell more beer than anything else, and that’s pretty well portioned controlled already by the way it’s served. You’re bigger problem will be underperforming bartenders, who give away too many free drinks, (either intentionally or unintentionally by not keeping track), and outright theft. ETA: And yes, consistent overpourers are a problem too.
Obviously you’ll look at the gross for a shift to determine if a bartender is underperforming because they’re lazy, inattentive, or dislikeable. But neither inventory or portion control helps there. You have to have a good idea of the number of customers and typical gross for similar days and times.
Bars have always had a problem doing inventory and a lot of employees know that. One club I worked at had a manager selling things out the back door. It was a large night club, so catching him was difficult (apparently he eventually sold a few bottles of stuff that usually took a year to go through). This place did allow the bartenders a certain amount of comp drinks per shift. The smart ones would use them to get larger tips from big spenders.
My friends in New Orleans own a bar, and pretty much daily they get up at 4am, drive to the bar, close it up, count the receipts, check the inventory (they mark the bottles and do some estimating), and review the bartender logs of everything that transpired that day. It was years before they would take their eyes off the place and go on vacation. They rarely buy free drinks, even if you’re guests at their house, and if they do, they usually physically pay for the drinks. This isn’t just for inventory, but because it helps them keep a dollar amount on how much they’re losing when giving away drinks. They are very well liked and respected (actually, Kayaker, haven’t we discussed the Erin Rose before?), but they run that bar like a tight ship and are doing rather well because of it.
Did you ever go to a bar where the service is so bad, dozens of empty glasses waiting to be refilled, and wonder if they got some sort of government subsidy, because they certainly ain’t making their money selling booze?
Yep!! Great place. Troy and Angie are the best.
They will be my inspiration should I ever open a place.
Yeah, there’d be a soda hose. I just meant bars make a nice margin on a family of four that comes in and buys a beer for dad, but Cokes and fries for everyone else.
Good call on the DDs. But also Rum n Cokes and Cuba Libres.
There are tons of places kinda like what you’re describing in Japan, called izakayas. Where I live there is practically one on every corner. They do typically have some sort of food option though.
The OP doesn’t say where he/she is, but I would find out if there’s a local Hash House Harriers chapter and make sure you’re on their circuit is there is.
This all comes back to the regulars/customers point, but if you’re running a clean establishment with good products, this is a good group to spread the word.
On the food issue: there are a couple of bars in my area that serve no food, but will let you bring in anything you want. I think it’s a great choice. They have amazing brews (50+ beers on tap, plus bottles), and instead of eating shitty bar food, you can grab a pizza or hit up the excellent BBQ joint two blocks down and bring it in. One of he bars is about a blck from the farmer’s market, and thre’s nothing better than an alfresco lunch of fresh veggies, crusty bread, and local cheese with delicious fancy beer to wash it down.
A guy I used to work with bought a bar and pretty much lost everything he had. He told me he had never imagined how much money it cost to keep a bar operating. Not counting the cost of buying the bar, he put $100,000 into it before he opened. And this was an existing bar that was already up and running with an established customer base.
A bar I like is very similar. They maintain a pile of take out menus from local places that deliver.