Turning Around a Bar

[quote]dday wrote:
The non smoking thing is tricky, so many non smokers will smoke when they drink and most people realize that bar=smoke and won’t care. My favorite bar/pool hall used to be the local place to go on and Fri/Sat night. A few years ago the city banned smoking and now the place is teetering on closing, I was there last night and there was about 30 people in the whole place. Most people will drive 20 minutes to the next town where they can smoke.
[/quote]

The good thing here is twofold. 1 - I don’t give a shit if we lose the old timers that are there now, they don’t spend enough money for me to want to please them. 2 - Even if they do get pissed off, they have no where else to go where they can smoke inside.

[quote]Axel44 wrote:

  1. Get majority ownership, without that you are wasting
    your time. [/quote]

I’d like to buy him out in 5 years. Right now I don’t think it’s a possibility.

[quote]benos4752 wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
5.Do you charge cover? If not, have you considered charging cover?
6.Do you serve food or is it just drinks? 7. If so what generates the highest contribution margin? Perhaps pushing and/or developing a menu could be another improvement.
[/quote]

I like this, if you can, and have a kitchen on site, try partnering with a popular restaurant in the area. My favorite bar in the area partnered up with an popular hamburger joint that’s been in the area since the 50’s. On the busy nights, they one waitress and one cook come in with a partial menu (couple burgers, chicken strips, different types of fries, etc).

There’s been times I’ve gone in just for a burger and beer.[/quote]

Right now all we have is typical bar food, I like the idea of partnering up
with a local restaurant, though. I’ll definitely be looking into that.


These guys already have you beat as far as a dive bar in Philly. Sorry.

You need to totally renovate the place. If it’s the kind of bar I’m thinking it is, it’s a total POS dive that nobody except your old timers wants to go to.

The only time I’ve really seen bars like this turn around are when they completely remodeled- get the shitty stench out of the bar, get new counters, new lights, come up with a decent motif, and put some money into it.

If you don’t put the money in to make it look nice, I can guarantee that nobody will go there- and even if they do, they’ll treat the place like shit because it looks like shit.

Ban smoking. If there’s chicks at your bar the guys will come whether they can smoke or not. In Jersey we can’t smoke at all and it hasn’t hurt bar sales at all.

Make a nice outdoor patio section too. Those are catching on big time around here- outside bars where people can hang out and eat or drink when its nice.

Get the shitty element out of your bar first though. do it however you have to. If I walk into a place and see four toothless old guys at the bar, I know right away what kind of bar it is. They won’t come to a place that doesn’t look like a VFW hall though, so again, make it nicer and they’ll make their way out.

Drink specials are nice but everybody does them, and anyone can go buy a 30 pack. Make the atmosphere and the food good first. Offer the NFL sunday ticket. Always have bouncers or someone who can handle trouble on hand- ALWAYS.

You want your place to be nicer, stop selling miller high life. Ever.

Oh and don’t ditch live bands. Ditch the shitty live bands.

You gotta a frat band with your buddies and you want to play your first gig? Play it somewhere else. You want guys that can play, blue players and good bands that don’t suck and generally stay in Philadelphia.

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
My questions for you:

1.What kind of area is this place located? [/quote]

Middle class area, Philadelphia suburbs.

Smoking is banned in Philadelphia bars right now, this bar is on the outskirts of the city. A bar opened up about a mile down the road inside the city (non smoking) and people left this place to go to the new non smoking bar.

Honestly, I’ve even spoken with smokers that hate bars which allow smoking. It’s one of those things you don’t even notice until smoking gets banned in all bars.

The table upgrade is to change the dining room atmosphere into more of a bar atmosphere. Sitting down at low tables while at a bar just doesn’t seem right (to me, at least). The high top tables make it easier for crowds to stand around a table.
[/quote]

In the area I live in, the successful suburb bars have one big night a week (usually Thursday) and then most people go downtown on weekends. Instead of full on competing with bars on the shore, you could focus on making Thursday a big night for your bar.

From the information given, I also think it’s quite ambitious to look at doubling sales over 6 months. Once you make the proposed changes that will discourage your current clientele from returning, you will not only have to find new customers to meet break-even levels but ALSO the new target you have set.

Lastly, I don’t know what your bar menu looks like, but I’ve been to some bars and they have ridiculous food selection (4-5 page menus) and most of what is available is only “okay.” Personally, I think a streamlined menu with no more than 10-15 items where everything is typical bar food and tastes great is better than a large selection of okay items. Think one laminated page menu.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
You need to totally renovate the place. If it’s the kind of bar I’m thinking it is, it’s a total POS dive that nobody except your old timers wants to go to.

The only time I’ve really seen bars like this turn around are when they completely remodeled- get the shitty stench out of the bar, get new counters, new lights, come up with a decent motif, and put some money into it.

If you don’t put the money in to make it look nice, I can guarantee that nobody will go there- and even if they do, they’ll treat the place like shit because it looks like shit.

[/quote]

Not just that, but if you’re advertising “under new management” and people show up to see basically the same bar they remember it as, who really is going to want to stay and come back? There should be something significantly different about this place.

[quote]therajraj wrote:

Lastly, I don’t know what your bar menu looks like, but I’ve been to some bars and they have ridiculous food selection (4-5 page menus) and most of what is available is only “okay.” Personally, I think a streamlined menu with no more than 10-15 items where everything is typical bar food and tastes great is better than a large selection of okay items. Think one laminated page menu.

[/quote]

Absolutely agree.

If its the younger crowd you’re after, do what it takes to get girls in there. The only thing most youngins really care about in a bar is what kind of people are going to be in there on any given night.

Other things my friends and I would consider in college: likeable staff, sometimes pool/darts, jukebox with good mix of new and old.

Really though what matters is that hot pieces of ass be in there.

[quote]smh23 wrote:
If its the younger crowd you’re after, do what it takes to get girls in there. The only thing most youngins really care about in a bar is what kind of people are going to be in there on any given night.

Other things my friends and I would consider in college: likeable staff, sometimes pool/darts, jukebox with good mix of new and old.

Really though what matters is that hot pieces of ass be in there.[/quote]

Clubs here will hire hot girls to basically come to their bars to drink and dance. Their job is just to be there and look pretty. But I’ve only really seen that in a club.

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:

[quote]Blaze_108 wrote:
This is pretty much common sense but…
What part of the market are you trying to attract? Is it in a college town, where you could hope to get the younger crowd? You need to make your bar as attractive as possible to your target group of customers. Example: if you want to get college-age people in to your bar, start hosting dollar draft nights a certain night of the week.[/quote]

The specials are already better than any other bar I know of. $2 miller high life bottles all day, every day. $3 Tuesdays in which we have 5 or 6 appetizers or entrees for $3. I’ve come to the conclusion that specials or prices are not the problem, just the overall atmosphere of the place doesn’t attract customers who spend a good amount of money.[/quote]

Those specials DO sound good, but what night of the week the specials are is even more important than what the specials are IMO. I would run either a thursday or friday night special at least.

Thoughts:
2 things I’ve seen that gets lots of college aged people to bars around here

  1. either cheap beer or well drinks on thursday or friday nights
  2. Really cheap food all the time (breakeven pricing, so like $2-3 for a burger etc) with moderate alcohol prices.

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
You need to totally renovate the place. If it’s the kind of bar I’m thinking it is, it’s a total POS dive that nobody except your old timers wants to go to.

The only time I’ve really seen bars like this turn around are when they completely remodeled- get the shitty stench out of the bar, get new counters, new lights, come up with a decent motif, and put some money into it.

If you don’t put the money in to make it look nice, I can guarantee that nobody will go there- and even if they do, they’ll treat the place like shit because it looks like shit.

[/quote]

Not just that, but if you’re advertising “under new management” and people show up to see basically the same bar they remember it as, who really is going to want to stay and come back? There should be something significantly different about this place.[/quote]

Yup. A bar around here that used to be very popular was bought some asian family that had no idea what they were doing. They changed the name to something more college sounding, let the quality of the food go down to the point where its inedible, and advertised all the time that it was some new kind of bar.

Unfortunately it was the same POS it was before, and now they’re floundering because everyone looks at the place like the gross shithole it is.

By the way, if you start doing that well drinks or real cheap college specials, realize who you bring with it- drunk waste of life college kids who are absolutely going to get in fights and drive home drunk from your place and hit shit.

To me, it’s never worth it to get known as “that place” when you could be known as a much better bar.

How old are you? Use facebook.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
By the way, if you start doing that well drinks or real cheap college specials, realize who you bring with it- drunk waste of life college kids who are absolutely going to get in fights and drive home drunk from your place and hit shit.

To me, it’s never worth it to get known as “that place” when you could be known as a much better bar.[/quote]

That’s unfair. A college-aged crowd doesn’t automatically mean a low class establishment. You’ll have those problems no matter your age group. You just sound like you hate all college students.

I think Irish and Raj touched on some good points, especially the need to do some significant remodelling.

I’ve been to a few places that switched to non smoking, but didn’t really do anything besides paint. They still reeked of smoke, and there was still that smoke damaged feel to everything. They were competing against places that did complete renovations and the comparison killed them.

You could sponsor some local clubs or teams, preferably those with hot chicks as members. I’m pretty sure back when I was in school, some of the local clubs would negotiate on things like no cover charge or special prices for members of that college, but specify that the club would have to hold X number of events at their bar per year.

Or you could turn it into Phillies hottest new gay hangout. Just be sure to have Dennis behind the bar.

Renovations are overrated. Make it look liveable but don’t blow your load on it. Depending on your crowd.

Speaking of which what is your crowd? You said you wanted to get rid of your old guys but who will be the new? Students? Is this a predrink bar? Do you want it to be busy at 8 pm or 1 am? You probably wont get both.

As far as your “celebrity tending”. It’s a good idea but doesn’t work to excess. What you could do is pick 1 night that is YOURS. Say no one in your area has a good Tuesday crowd, pick one drink, make it dirt cheap, (then make the rest of the rail cheapish as well) get the best bartenders in the area that want to pick up another shift and get them to work that night. (NO ONE will bring you more people than your bartenders. Advertising, postering, facebook etc= bull shit).

Then you could pick another night say Sundays and make them an Industry Night. Get a few bartenders from different bars to guest-tend and reward them with more shifts based on how many people they bring in.

Cover may seem like a bad idea when you’re dead but it is actually counter intuitive. If you charge a cover you can reward regulars, friends of the bartenders and people who show up early. You charge 3 dollars and make a guestlist before midnight. It lets you keep track of who your staff is bringing in and gets the crowd there early, rather than showing up for last call. Of course I only recommend that on high traffic nights, like the weekend.

Personally I’d say fuck smoking, Ontario bars survive without it.

And get a DJ for saturday night. IF you can afford it get a band and a DJ. Live band till midnight then DJ for the rest of the night. One very successful bar does that in Ottawa.
To save money on that idea you could make it an Open Mike Night, with unlimited guestlist for every band.

So Coles Notes

People will go to an ugly bar if its busy
Pick your clientele
Bartenders are your money maker
Pick a night and own it
Charge cover as a way to reward the loyal.
DJ
Open Mike

[quote]bwbski wrote:
How old are you? Use facebook. [/quote]

25, I have my girlfriend revamping the facebook page and actually putting it to use.

[quote]MementoMori wrote:
Renovations are overrated. Make it look liveable but don’t blow your load on it. Depending on your crowd.

Speaking of which what is your crowd? You said you wanted to get rid of your old guys but who will be the new? Students? Is this a predrink bar? Do you want it to be busy at 8 pm or 1 am? You probably wont get both.

As far as your “celebrity tending”. It’s a good idea but doesn’t work to excess. What you could do is pick 1 night that is YOURS. Say no one in your area has a good Tuesday crowd, pick one drink, make it dirt cheap, (then make the rest of the rail cheapish as well) get the best bartenders in the area that want to pick up another shift and get them to work that night. (NO ONE will bring you more people than your bartenders. Advertising, postering, facebook etc= bull shit).[/quote]

This is one of our biggest problems. The current bartenders don’t bring anyone in at all. They’ve all been there for so long it almost feels like they just gave up on trying to make a crowd. We’re speaking with them and going over the new agenda with them so if they don’t at least start trying again we’ll have to get some new bartenders in there.

[quote]Then you could pick another night say Sundays and make them an Industry Night. Get a few bartenders from different bars to guest-tend and reward them with more shifts based on how many people they bring in.

Cover may seem like a bad idea when you’re dead but it is actually counter intuitive. If you charge a cover you can reward regulars, friends of the bartenders and people who show up early. You charge 3 dollars and make a guestlist before midnight. It lets you keep track of who your staff is bringing in and gets the crowd there early, rather than showing up for last call. Of course I only recommend that on high traffic nights, like the weekend.

Personally I’d say fuck smoking, Ontario bars survive without it.

And get a DJ for saturday night. IF you can afford it get a band and a DJ. Live band till midnight then DJ for the rest of the night. One very successful bar does that in Ottawa.
To save money on that idea you could make it an Open Mike Night, with unlimited guestlist for every band.

So Coles Notes

People will go to an ugly bar if its busy
Pick your clientele
Bartenders are your money maker
Pick a night and own it
Charge cover as a way to reward the loyal.
DJ
Open Mike
[/quote]

Thanks for the post.

Thanks rajraj and FI, good points all around. I really like your point about the menus, our menu is completely bloated to try and offer more variety but no one even buys most of the crap on there.