Here come all the questions!

[MarknRitaville]

Hey everyone!

We are planning to open MarknRitaville on December 19th. The city councel approved our liquor license last night. They are going to change their ordinance to accommodate our license. We should have it by the end of this week. Should I start calling the distributors now? Or, wait until I have ALL my liquor licenses in place? I don't know how long it will take to get the county liquor license. And, the state should just "rubber stamp" our liquor license (so the mayor said).

How much should I order my first time? I haven't a clue!

What kind of stuff will they be willing to give away? The bar never had draft beer. Do you think the distributor will supply the taps & keg cooler if I only sell their draft or should I purchase those on my own? I have looked into pricing and found 2 single taps/coolers for $499/ea. To buy a double would be over $2k (www.WEBstaurant.com (http://www.WEBstaurant.com)).

Your input is greatly valued and appreciated!

Thanks,

Rita

[KeystoneDerby]

Rita,

First off congratulations! Now to get to some answers.

1st..do you know you local distributors already? If not each distributor only sells certain brands, so you should first make a list of what you want ( by liquor/ beer type, then brand.) Next, you have to dig through each dist. catalog and find out whose got what and price. After that you may want to re-adjust your list.

2nd, Im not sure of your state laws, but in NY you would need to send a copy of your liquor license to the distributor, so you may have to wait until you get that signed paperwork

3rd- How much should you order? Well....whats your budget? I wouldn't even THINK about opening my doors until I had my racks filled and at LEAST 3 backups of semi-popular, and 5+ of your popular well spirits - Vodka, Rum, Gin. These are usually your big sellers. When I opened my pub we put ~3k into inventory before we opened doors.

4th - Beer is BIG business. BUT that comes with a price. MANY big beer distributors will assist you with your draft beer needs...BUT they demand loyalty for this favor...that means if you went with with Budweiser, and then Miller/Coors comes out with the best thing since sliced bread...you may run into resistance if you switch out their lines.

5th. What is the current setup for draft? If you have NO cooler, NO lines, NO Co2 / nitrogen, no stand and tap...you're looking at quite a large investment. The beer companies may supply with you with couplers and tap handles, but that's about it. Where is your food cooler located? You can get keg rack systems and dedicate a part of your food cooler to beer, but you would still need someone to run the lines.
That being said..its a very worthwhile investment, draft beer is highly profitable and in demand.

Let me know some more about your establishment and I would be happy to answer some more questions

~Travis

[clubpromo8898]

Has the fire marshall given you a capacity yet? Thats what you should base your bar, employees, inventory, lighting , speakers, everything off of

bricelee@netbusiness.com

[MarknRitaville]

Thanks for taking the time to share your input.

The state is dragging their feet with our Articles of Organization. We are a LLC and had to pay $500 to file the paperwork that we haven't received yet. We also have to register with the IL Dept Of Rev, which we have done, but have yet to receive that paperwork. We need both of those items before we can apply for our state liquor license. Found out that we do not have to have a county liquor license because we are within the city limits of Staunton, IL. You're right Keystone, they (liquor distributors) won't touch us w/o that liquor license in place. We had our opening day set for December 19th, but I don't think that's going to happen. We'll be lucky to have all our beer/liquor ordered by then! Keep your fingers crossed!!!!

Budweiser is going to get us a 5 barrel draft keg cooler for $2K, but they have to be exclusive and they will supply all the necessary equipment. Hey, for that kind of money, I'll do it! We don't have a walk in. The previous owner dismantled it and threw it away. So we are going to use the keg cooler to store our extra inventory. I will purchase a single tap for $500 to have another draft brand available, if it is necessary. AB gave us 3 neon signs and 2 mirrors, so far. They said they will be back with more. It's starting to look like a bar now. I will have some new photos to post soon. I am supposed to meet with the Miller Rep on the 16th. I can place my order with them but nothing will be delivered until we have that license. We have $10k set aside for beer & liquor inventory.

No food, except pizza and popcorn and a snack machine for now. We don't have the budget for all that kitchen equipment, fire safety, and insurance right now. We have 4 apartments in the building that we are working on too. We may have 3 of them rented before the end of the year. That is where our food budget has gone. Once we get some revenue, we will build the kitchen and be able to serve food, hopefully within the next 3 to 6 months.

Coin-op vendor has placed 2 video gaming machines, dart board, and the juke box. We are expecting 3 more gaming machines, a snack/cigarette machine, and an ATM next week. The split is 50/50 on everything except the ATM. No pool table, yet. We heard some horror stories about the place when they had one. So for now, we are going to skip the pool table to keep some of the riff-raff out!

As always, opinions and knowledge is much appreciated! Keep it coming!

Thanks,

Rita

[Brugaldy]

Hello everyone,

My partner and I have been working on starting a nightclub for two years now and were able to put together a very detailed business plan and plan to meet with a lender in a few weeks but we have a concern that we would like to fix before we meet with the lender to of course increase the chances of obtaining the funds that we need to finally make this dream of starting a nightclub come true!

Our issue is that the management section of our business plan is "WEAK" as we only have some bartending experience but are very dedicated and feel very strong about this new venture because of the location and some of the people that are supporting us or should I say that also believe that we will be successful as we do not have much entertainment venues.

So, what we are trying to do is put together an advisory team. That way, the lender feels a little more comfortable lending to us as we are fairly new to this industry and have no management experience in the industry. However, my partner has over 10 years of restaurant management experience and I recently completed my education with a Degree in Business Administration. However, we know that our background is not enough!

So we ask that if there is anybody out there that would be willing to participate on our advisory board or willing to help in any other way, we trully would appreciate any help as we feel we need it in order to obtain the funds needed to start our new venture!

Also, as to compensation for your expertise you let us know what you are looking for.

Thanks and hope you guys can help or guide us in the right direction!

[boz]

Hey Rita, go over to Sauget to BCL Auctions. They have a big warehouse of new and used everything. Website is bclauctions.com. You can get one barely used for that price, because you may want to carry like a bud and bud light, and maybe a schlafly, and blue moon. I am 4 blocks from the brewery and refuse to be exclusive. All the distributors will put their equipment and even add taps for free so they have a handle. I took a 4 barrel cooler and made it hold 8. 1/2 barrel of bud and bud light, and squeezed in 6 more 1/6 barrels of other. Works great on a budget.

If you guys need anything, I am right across the river in Soulard @ The Library.

Matt

[MarknRitaville]

Awesome Matt! Thanks!

[baseballbar]

Mark,

If you have any hope of getting open before New Years, you need to suck it up and drive to Springfield and file your corporate documents in person with the Secretary of State, and pay the expedited filing fees ($100 - $150 for an LLC I think). If you mailed those documents in without the expedited filing fee, they go in a huge hopper and they get to them when they get to them, usually in 2-3 weeks, from past experience.

If you mailed in a check with your LLC paperwork, but go up and file in person and pay the expedited fees, they usually return the check and mailed-in paperwork when they get to it, i.e. you don't end up paying twice. Same deal with your revenue account filing - if it hasn't issued yet, plan to go do it in person, or it could be a week-plus wait.

Same deal with the state liquor license. Once you are incorporated with IL, and have your local liquor license go up to Springfield and apply for the state license in person at the Illinois Liquor Control Commission. You can download the application from their website - do NOT forget to take your insurance certificate with the "Additional Insured" section phrased exactly as the application. Go in the morning, the line will be short to non-existent.

Illinois distributors can check online whether you have your state license via a state database. As a new account they won't deliver squat until you're issued that license.

Good luck (even if your bar is in St. Louis Cardinals country).

[MarknRitaville]

Thanks baseballbar. Our articles of organization were mailed to our home post office box. I got them today. IL DOR is going to fax my certificate tomorrow. We are going Wed to the liquor commission to apply in person for our liquor license. We WILL BE OPEN THE 19TH IF IT KILLS US!!!

We are White Sox fans. Our neighbor and very good friend is Mark Buehrle's aunt! I have a signed jersey and hat and a bottle of Buehrlot. We were in Chicago in Aug 2008 to watch him pitch against the Red Sox at US Cellular Field. It was awesome!

[KeystoneDerby]

Any news? Getting close to the 19th!

[MarknRitaville]

Any news? Getting close to the 19th!

We got our state liquor license this morning. We drove to Springfield and applied in person.

We have all of our beer ordered and it will be delivered tomorrow and Friday. Unfortunately, we missed the delivery for our liquors so we have to drive to Belleville to pick up Jack Daniels, etc... tomorrow. Also going to Sam's to pick up some odds & ends. Friday, we have to drive to Springfield to pick up other liquors.

AB got us a deal on a five barrel keg cooler with 4 taps and all necessary equipment; a little over $2K. It is in place and ready to go. The also comped us 2 cases of 16oz beer glasses.

The rest of the gaming equipment will be delivered tomorrow. We decided not to go with the candy/cigarette machine. We will have candy bars and chips for sale behind the bar. I would rather have the $0.60 profit than $0.30 after the 50/50 split.

We will have all the basics to get started Saturday. WOO HOO! We will have our GRAND OPENING in a month or so. We should have some of the glitches worked out by then.

That's all I have for now. I will update after Saturday to let everyone know how it went on opening day.

Thanks for all your support and knowledge. As always it is appreciated!

Thanks,

Rita

[KeystoneDerby]

Great to hear, glad everything is falling into place and EXCELLENT idea on the soft opening, work out all of the problems which WILL happen and have a bangout grand opening! Nice deal on the cooler too!

[rootsreality]

We decided not to go with the candy/cigarette machine. We will have candy bars and chips for sale behind the bar. I would rather have the $0.60 profit than $0.30 after the 50/50 split.


We started out selling chips and candy with everything individually priced, but it was a hassle to price everything and be sure it got rung appropriately. Eventually finding space to display the stuff was a big hassle. I decided we needed to simplify. We eliminated potato chips completely....they were getting outdated before we could sell them. We trimmed down other snacks. Now we keep an assortment of stuff in a nice basket on the back bar. Everything in the basket is priced the same - $1 each. There's candy bars, gum, nuts, mints, microwave popcorn, individually packaged jerky, dill pickles, energy bars, pork rinds, cookies, aspirin, Rolaids, and even cigarette lighters. I specifically hunt out stuff that we can sell at $1 for the basket. We keep just a couple of each item in the basket and restock as necessary. We can easily add or eliminate items without the appearance of being out of stock. It is so much easier this way! It works out really well for us.

Our first basket was woven. It didn't last long before it started to fall apart. Now we have a metal serveware basket. It is big with open sides so folks can see the stuff in it, kind of like this:

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/tablecraft-bk17212-artisan-12-x-9-rectangular-black-wire-basket-4-pk/808BK17212.html

But a low basin shaped bucket like this would work too:
http://www.oriontrading.com/copper/copper.html

[MarknRitaville]

I'm glad to know that works for you. We have room for the chip racks and candy. They are all priced the same $0.75.

I love your idea though. If what we're doing doesn't work, I will definitely give your idea a try.

Thanks,

Rita