how does this country bar and lease terms sound????????????????

[chads30]

Family and I are planning to open a Country bar in a city of 60,000+ people. The city has a very very popular country radio station which we would love to partner up with. The outer suburbs of this coastal city make the area population over 250,000. There is NO real country bar in the area surprisingly. We plan to do ladies nights/cowboy male revues, texas hold'em tournaments, free line dancing lessons on off nights, a beat the clock beer night with Pabst 12oz drafts starting at .50cents at 8pm and increasing .25cents every hour till midnight, a country karaoke night, and then live country bands on friday and saturday nights.

The property is located on basically "bar row" in the city. It is in the best square block in the city. All the other bars are either brew pubs (very popular in this area) or sports bars. It is a 3,600 sqft property with 1,800 sqft on two levels. The first level (which is basically a basement) has bathrooms for men and women, but other than that it is basically a mangers office, dry storage areas, and a kitchen (We are going to serve pub food, subs, sandwiches, fried chicken, and some other good dishes until around 9:30pm since we have been in the food business for 25+ years). The city allows the bar to be open until 1am. The main floor is around 1,800 sqft. I would say it is around 60ftx30ft in dimensions. The bar spans basically the whole 60ft. on one side of the room.

The kitchen needs cooking equipment which we have a good used restaurant equipment supplier which will finance us most of this. The bar has all the necessary sinks behind it with two 3 door sliding beer bottle coolers. It also has two ice bins.

Our family will all be working there so other than two line cooks to teach all our sandwiches, pub food, etc, there will be little payroll. I know the payroll for two cooks at $10 or so an hour will add up during the year.

Here is the lease we negotiated. It is a 3-year lease. For months 1-6 we will pay $2500. Months 7-12 will be $4700. Months 13-24 will be $5000. And Months 25-36 will be $5250.
I am happy with the first six months obviously but kinda worried about the rest. But we got the landlord down a good amount to what he was asking. It is a modified gross lease so if there are any increases in expenses over the base year than we pay the difference along with the other tenants in the block long building area. Depending on the sqft size each tenant operates.

How does this whole plan and idea, and lease sound folks?
Any questions or comments?

[originolsin]

If my math is correct, this is how it breaks down:

Over the course of 3 years, you average a monthly rent of $4,616.67
If you divide that by the 3,600 sq. feet, then you are paying $1.28 per sq. foot.
I would divide it by the useable area that you have, which sounds like 1800, but it doesn't really matter much because it only increases it to $2.56 per sq.

That seems as though it is a reasonable price to pay. As for your beer special, my insurance asks if I ever sell any drinks for less than $1.00. I don't so I would be curious if it would raise your premium substantially or if you would be disqualified.

[NewBar]

I'd want more than three years

[chads30]

We offered a 3-yr and a 5-yr and opted to go with the 3-yr after his counter offers. We will have options for 5-yr renewal in the lease. We are not planning on failing by any means but if we do we will be happy we took the 3-yr lease since its guaranteed. An in 3 years we may want to even move and expand since our usable space is only 1,800sqft here with another couple hundred downstairs because of the bathrooms.

[owneroper]

why would you have a 50 cent drink and my insurance ask the same thing about drinks under 1.00. You either like country or you dont and no amount of cheap beer will get me to your bar but if I love country and cant wait for you to open I would love to have cheap beer with my favorite type of music in the only bar in town if that makes sense. Your going to limit yourself to the number of people because of music so I wouldnt sell cheap for this reason. You couldnt give me free beer to listen to punk, rap etc and I am gonna guess country works the same on folks

[bruce]

At 124 possible pounders per keg, 50 cents comes to a possible $62.00. My keg cost is $68.00 for the cheapest beer available here. I don't know about anyone else, but I am trying to make money, not throw it away.

[seandell]

As for the cheap beer, we do a $0.99 cent Captains and corona's night. We sell the 7ozers. We do not make $ on those, but we do on the other drinks that night. Why do we do it, we are a brand new bar so we needed to get the word out, also I bar-tend that night so I still make $$ in tips. Maybe he is looking at it as a building thing?, I'm new come check me out kinda thing??

[walawdog]

I would not sell beer for .50, if you customers can only afford a .50 drink...you don't want them. I think ultra cheap beer specials attract the wrong kind of crowd and you don't want to build your business off that kind of element as it will drive away your better customers.

[David]

Cheap Drinks bring in Cheap People.

[chads30]

We are contemplating the location now since we have come to the conclusion that the 1800sqft of usable space won't be enough to have a decent band and a large enough dance floor for country dancing. With the bar and bathroom and stairs to downstairs and such, there is just not enough room in that venue.

We are now looking at two other places...

1) A larger building on the outskirts of the city. More capacity. Around half the rental rate than the previous property that was in the downtown part of the city on bar row. Room for dancing, a mechanical bull, band, etc. It is between a mile or two outside the downtown part of the city so there would be no real foot traffic which is a big negative. My other family involved insists that since there are no other country bars in the area that people that like country and dancing and such would still come. There is parking and it is on a major route into the city.

2) An even larger building on the outskirts of the city. More than double capacity than the original venue and also alot more capacity than option #1 above. This place would be around the same rent as the original property in the downtown part of the city. Tons of room for dancing, a mechanical bull, band, etc. It is also between a mile or two outside of the downtown part of the city and would not get foot traffic. There is tons of parking also and it is on the same major route into the city.

Should we do the inner city bar row location, or option #1 or option #2?

Thanks guys for you input.

[Michael Black]

Well, IF (and that's a tall big if) iy was marketed well, yes they could come to you on the outskirts. The question there, especially with the larger space is if there is enough of the target market from the general population to support it especially on a non weekend day.

Here, in this particular situation, I would recommend the downtown bar zone with much higher car and foot traffic and more of your target market already there. Without years of experience, you stand a far greater chance of success there in my opinion. Maybe just have small acts like solo guitarists/singers for now on a very small stage. Can you expand later- is there a space next door? If you are a success and still the only country player after 1-2 years, you could then expand or even open up more of a country concert venue either nearby downtown or the outskirts. You could also move it downtown into a larger space once you had the money and the following. The build out already in place just requiring a makeover is a huge plus and will save you a bundle of $, headaches, and risk.


Good luck,'

Mike

Good luck,

Mike

[chads30]

Im not sure ill be able to make a profit in the downtown area with a capacity of only around 60 perhaps. On the outskirt two bars I can easily fit over 100.
None of the three need much build out besides kitchen equipment.
There is another floor upstaires to the downtown location but I can't have a band up there or a bull, or even play music so its a waste of space. This is because above that floor is apartments so they don't want music and such.

[chads30]

New News...The downtown bar will allow us to place a band/entertainment and dance floor on the upper level, and also there was a discrepency with the lower level being on 60 people capacity. With some new found information, we would probably easily be able to fit 150plus in the downtown bar, but it would average about $5500-$6000/month over the three year lease.
The outskirt bar 1.5-2 miles out of the downtown part of the city would fit about 100 capacity because it doesn't have a sprinkler system, but it would be about $2500 per month average rent.

We are VERY VERY confused about which one to choose. Days are dragging by choosing between the two.

[KeystoneDerby]

Cheap Drinks bring in Cheap People.


Cheap people dont tip, no tips leads employess to be less then honest...or leave.