New Club

[beerman]

hey all,

new to the exchange. just want to ask for some advice about opening up a club. i live in gville, and have come across a liquor license and a venue. need help finding some used bar coolers and registers. any info on sound and lighting would be nice too.
actually any info would be great.


thanks

beerman

[Tantra]

hi beerman,
we have just liquidated our club and would have sizable stuff for a start-up available from glasses up-to full sound, ready for shipment and immediate set-up... please contact me for pictures and inventory list. alexschmitz69@hotmail.com

looking forward to your reply.

best regards, alex

[Baudtender]

Check out the pertinent section (Restaurant & Foodservice) of
eBay:

http://listings.ebay.com/aw/plistings/list/category11874/index.html?from=R4

I've bought a lot of stuff through this, and I've only been burned
by jerks 2 times on over 80 deals (first was a guy who kept my
money and didn't ship a $20 cash drawer, second was a company
that I paid a "bargain" price to on a salamander broiler, but the
thing was so rusted out and wretched when I got it that I just
ended up taking my lumps and putting it in the dumpster.)

Ask lots of questions of the seller before bidding - beer coolers,
for example, have 3 major potential problems you have to look
out for - the lids can be shot (you will hear a horrible shriek if
you are ever in my club and a bartender dares to put their
butts, or God help them, stand on one of my beer coolers), the
bottoms can be rusted out, and the refrigeration can be screwed
up by bad handling during shipping (usually just a broken line
that will require a $100 service call and refrigerant refill from your
friendly HVAC guy, but factor it in.) Also be aware that shipping
of heavy items can be a significant cost, not to mention that some
sellers like to add in a hefty "palletizing" fee.

When something heavy arrives, the driver may very well stand
there and scratch his butt while you figure out how to get it off of
his truck, the back end of which is some 4+ feet off the ground. I
recently bought a dishwasher for my kitchen - thing goes over
175 pounds but the young & healthy yokel driver showed up
before the scheduled time and refused to help me get it off the
truck, even with bribes of food & money. I ended up cutting it off
the pallet and tilting it off by myself. Yokel then excused himself
to go use my restroom, so I took the opportunity to put a couple
of raw cod fillets behind his drivers seat as a personal "to-go"
order. That was just wrong, I know, but it felt right.

On the other hand, I know I saved over $1000 from what the
local restaurant supply houses were offering for similar machines,
and there's damned few moving parts on a dishwasher.

I guess buying unseen used machinery is an art - for instance,
you can buy used POS registers, but I'd immediately want to
know who is going to program them and how much that will cost,
and I just don't think you should buy a POS system before you
have some hands on with it, because an appropriate system
can do lots of damage to your business. I bought an entire 6
terminal Micros 2700 package from a place that went out of
business - hellacious bargain and in pristine condition, but it took
me a couple of months just to program the system - and I'm an
accomplished software guy. Finding parts and service for older
stuff can also be an adventure. If you're comfortable getting your
hands dirty and can do a proper risk-assessment, used
equipment can be a great opportunity.

Conversely, if you have no experience with what goes wrong
with bar equipment, how much it costs to fix worst-case
scenarios, and/or are not mechanically inclined to do simple
repairs/cleaning and tune-ups, then (outside of the fact that
you may be in the wrong business) used equipment is probably
not so appropriate. You may dream of grabbing that cheap
AutoFry unit for doing late night food behind your bar, but if
you forget to ask if it's single or three-phase, or if it's a pain
to get a 220V line behind your bar, you may be in for a shock.
Always ask about fuel-type (natural gas/propane) and
electricity voltage/amps/phase requirements and assume
nothing.

The biggest risk I ever took was on an $18,000 super-automatic
espresso-capuccino machine - I paid $1500 for it and had to put
another $1500 in repairs into it, but it should pay off that
investment in a single year. That was a scary one. The best
deals had to be an 8oz. theatre-style popcorn machine that I got
for less than $100 (needed a hour's cleaning and a spritz of
black spray paint on the corners but now makes bar patrons
happy every day for the last year,) and an Island Oasis frozen
drink machine for $450 that came with 4 extra blender cups
and extra bushings and just arrived spotless, and I rave and
rave about how wonderful and fast it is to work with compared to
our old "slushie" style machine.

Make the seller give you a DOA warranty or "I pay for shipping
and return at my cost within a week" guarantee. Some sellers
will agree to escrow-service sales - check them out. I consider
phrases like "we don't have the means to test it" and "condition
unknown" to mean the same thing as "run away!" And, like I
said, know what you're buying and ask lots of detailed questions -
if the seller wants to sell, and is not trying hide something, you'll
get back fast and courteous responses. Otherwise, raise the red
flag and hold your bid.

I know I'm just scratching the surface here - how about some
other tips and advice from folks that have used eBay to purchase
bar/kitchen equipment?

Baudtender

[GMAN]

BEERMAN I can offer help with the registers or restaurant PC based system.You have to control your inventory in other words food purchases versus dollor in revenue to stay open..The biggest mistake in business is not having accountabilty..You want a system to track the food and liquor you buy and sell to make sure if you buy 100 Bud beers and you sold 50 that you have 50 left and if you don't have a way of finding who stoled them or drank them without telling you..Or your NY strip from walkout out the back door or the front. email me the size of your place, budget and how many table you want so you can start of right! gman.

[Mangas8282]

beerman, are you talking about Vibe? I too live in G-ville and enquired about the club. If you have signed the confidentiality agreement then I understand. I was just curious about the irony. Let me know if you need any help.

[Baudtender]

I didn't mention anything about sound/lighting. Go to Google
and put in "High Energy Lighting" and the first link should be
for a company called "cheaplights.com" out of somewhere in
Texas (Houston, I think.) I've gone the route of Martin and
Clay Paky, and High End Systems, until I found these guys,
and I get a tremendous bang for my buck with them. My main
gripe with the Big Boys was not just the big up-front cost,
but the bulbs for things like Intellibeams and Emulators was
just breathtaking (albeit it was about 6 years ago that I sold
them off to some other sucker, so things may be better with
their newer models - well except for the up-front cost, I'm
guessing.) I'm not putting down the Big Boys, they make
tremendous products that are built like tanks. But for small
and medium sized clubs or venues within multiple-concept
clubs, or just for clubs owned by cheap Scottish bastards
like myself, products like those found at the company above
have been a Godsend. Everything I bought from them 6 years
ago is still running as well as the day I bought them.

I'll always trade lumen output for bulb-life/duty cycle - I think
lumen output is vastly overrated in the average club (except
when it comes to video projectors.) And besides, most clubs
let their lighting get so smoke/dust hazed up that they're
cutting their lumens substantially after just few months or so.
It's not just out of pure cheapness - well, maybe it is. O.K., so
what? I take a certain amount of pride pissing off my colleague
club-owners when I tell them how much I invested in my lights. I
can't speak too much for their sound equipment - the only thing
I've bought that I'm using in-house is a cheap compressor/limiter
for the prototype MP3/Ogg touchscreen jukebox software I'm
writing, and, well, it compresses and limits just fine.

I always look at things like duty cycles, bulb life, and bulb
replacement costs - not only can it be expensive to replace
bulbs, they're rarely located in places in the club where it's a
joy to climb up there and replace them. The cost of DMX
compliant lighting (and I mean everything from intelligent lights,
to controller packs for pinspots and single-effect lights) and
(my personal favorite, since I'm a software geek) DMX controller
boards and software for personal computers has fallen
dramatically over the past couple-three years, I just wouldn't
mess with anything else.

In fact, if you shop properly by my way of thinking, you'll find it
necessary to set up a PM schedule for getting up there on the
ceiling and cleaning those fixtures, because you won't be
changing the bulbs that often (which is when we normally did it.)

And that's one of the reasons I don't recommend buying used
lighting - a lot of clubs don't take care of them, and the gook
that accumulates from smoke, fog juice, and dust can vastly
shorten their lives if they're not given the same (if not more) TLC
as the floor equipment gets. On the other hand, I can say this
with all impunity since I've sold off all of my used lighting. The
stuff that's here, I think, will outlast me.

Baudtender

[mfaydj]

Beerman

I work for a company in Ireland who sell and distribute for a number of products in both sound and light. We are primarily an audio an visual design and installation company.

We distrbute products like:

Audio

EAW, Crest Audio, Tannoy, ASS

Lighting

SGM, Coef

If you would like any information on any of our products or ranges please do not hesitate to contact me.

Hope the club works out. Best of luck!!!!

[Andrew]

Baudtender:

Thanks for the credible lighting tips and business stories. You're a bit of a one-man-corporation!