bar design

[robos99]

Ok I'm not sure if this belongs in this forum or in general discussion, but for now I'll just stick it here.

So I'm having some trouble designing the bar area of my new venue. I should mention that I have no bar experience, never owned one, never worked in one. I have worked in food service though so I do have a little bit of an idea of the importance of equipment placement.

My project is a medium scale concert venue, with a capacity of about 3,000 and a total square footage of about 50,000. The primary business will be concerts, but there will be a full bar and it will take on a sort of nightclub feel in that it's not just a giant cavern with a stage (as so many concert venues are). There will be 4 bars. 2 main bars in the main concert hall, a smaller bar in the private VIP lounge, and a small bar in the backstage lounge. 3 of the bars (#1 main, VIP, and backstage) will be within 20-30 feet of the walk-in, but the other main bar will be a good 70 feet away. I've broken down my design hurdles into a few major categories.

#1 - Beer. The obvious problem is how to keep the beer cold from the walk-in to the second main bar 70' away. Now I've done a whole bunch of research so I would say I'm somewhat familiar with the different cooling methods, and it seems glycol would be the only option here. I thought about the idea of having smaller coolers for the kegs, but I imagine with a high volume place like this that would be a bad idea.

What I'm not sure of is how many different beers will be needed. I know this depends greatly on my market, but how many different beers on tap do you guys carry? I'm assuming in my case there will be at least 2, maybe 4. I'm also not sure how many taps to have on the bar. Without my drawings in front of me, I'd say that each bar is a good 20' long (for the 2 main ones). Would it be easiest to have just 1 tap per bar in a central location, or have multiple? So where I'm getting confused is the best way to serve multiple taps in one location from one glycol cooler. I have seen it recommended that you use double lines, and thus a 2 pump cooler, which will work fine for the far main bar, but what about the other main bar? My thinking was if I'm going to invest in a glycol system, I might as well outfit both main bars with it. But it wouldn't be cost effective to invest in 2 glycol coolers. I'm also unsure of the keg setup. Would you have both bars feeding off the same keg? Or would you have 1 (or more) keg per location?

I have also considered the idea of only using glycol for the far bar, and using air cooled for the others. The backstage bar is of little concern, since it won't be used as much I think it would be best to put a keg cooler back there.


#2 POS - I've read some of the articles on POS systems around here (I think it was Scott who wrote quite a bit on it...very informative), but I guess my questions stem from the fact that I've never worked in a bar. Would it be better to have multiple POS terminals at the bar, or just one for the entire bar? Obviously the high cost of POS equipment is a big factor in this decision. Also, how do waitresses usually enter orders in? I've seen it mentioned to have a terminal not actually at the bar, but my question is, how does the drink order get to the bartender? In my case, the vast majority of sales will be at the bar. Only the private box seats (of which there aren't many) will have wait service. So would it be easier for everyone if there was a POS terminal near the boxes? Also, does anyone use their POS for items other than food/drinks? Perhaps merchandise or tickets?

# 3 - Soda/bar guns - This faces the same problem as I'm having with the beer, how to deal with multiple bars. What would be ideal for each bar, having several soda guns? That was my first guess. If there are several guns per bar, is it possible for it all to be a part of the same BIB system? And what about the other main bar, 70 feet away. Would it be more cost effective to have a second BIB system near that bar instead of trying to run the soda lines all the way out there? And, this might seem like a dumb question but, is it possible to have the same CO2 tank shared between the beer and soda system?

# 4 - Backbar equipment - Initially I had assumed I'd need a large amount of coolers, both under the bar and behind it, to handle all the bottles. But Scott has recommended to me to never have coolers behind the bar so as to never have the bartender need to turn away from the customer. So I guess the question is, how many coolers, and where? I'm sure someone is going to say that this depends on how much bottled beer I think I'll sell in a given night. That's something I'm not sure how to estimate. Do you see most of your sales coming from draft beers or bottles or is it about even?

Another concern I have for the backbar equipment is the fact that the two main bars are such a great distance apart. Any ideas for this problem? Having 2 ice machines is cost prohibitive, but perhaps someone has some creative ideas on how to keep the bar backs from walking a mile to restock.

And finally, this isn't really a design problem but more of a general lack of knowledge. Since I've never worked in a bar, and I'm not a big drinker, I'm not very familiar with some of the different bar terms. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction for some crash course on bar terminology. Especially confusing to me, I hear the phrases "well drinks" and such being tossed around, especially in Chris' video covering the liquor storage room.

A disclaimer, since I have a feeling someone will get on my case about this.....for my project I fully intend to take on a partner with plenty of bar experience, or hire a bar consultant, or both. None of the bar decisions will be left to myself alone, but I'm very detail oriented and have a desire to know everything about what might go on in my venue, so that has led me to these questions. But rest assured I'm not crazy enough to try to open a bar with no experience. My expertise lies in the music business portion of this project.

[walawdog]

Hey, congratulations on taking the steps to open your own venue. I can't offer a lot of advice, so I apologize for that. I would like to ask, how it is possible that having two ice machines is going to be cost prohibitive? If you can't afford to purchase two ice machines, how can you even think about taking on a 50k sqft operation? I think one thing you want to avoid is having your staff hauling stuff through your venue while you are open for business. So, having to haul ice or anything else for that matter through the crowd to the bar is going to suck. Also, I think you are going to need a POS terminal in multiple locations, not just one. Can you imagine your entire staff having to share 1 terminal to input orders? That will also suck and lead to slow service and pissed off customers. What about redundancy? You want more than one terminal, and more than one ice machine in case something goes down....at least there will be a back up. Just my 2 cents.

[robos99]

Walawag you make a good point. I suppose having 2 ice machines isn't really cost prohibitive. I had initially thought it would be a waste, but I would certainly want to have a backup anyways, so maybe 2 isn't such a bad idea afterall.

I see your point about wanting more than 1 terminal. I had planned on having more than 1, I just wasn't sure if there needed to be 1 for every serving location on the bar, or if that would just be overkill.

[walawdog]

I don't know that much about the POS terminals, so hopefully the brain trust around here will weigh in on it, but I think you will want a terminal at every bar, a printer in the kitchen (if there is food) and one at every busser/waiter station. This is a total of what....at least 6 terminals? Take a look at Chris's set up at his new "Dirty" bar, that vernue is much smaller and I think he has what....5 terminals?

[scott1988]

Good points so far guys. Keep it up.

Walawdog, you're right on with the idea to have a backup plan for the ice bins, POS, beer coolers, and etc. Obviously, with a place of this size, relying on one piece of equipment for each part of the business is almost asking for "murphy's law" to step in.

To answer your questions about POS may need to be another thread but let's try to keep this to one post to not confuse anyone. And I'll try not to write another chapter on POS systems this time.

Yes, you will want more than one terminal for the servers and more than one for the bartenders. You can have orders print from any terminal to any printer in the bar and you can use 1 printer for every terminal if necessary. So, if a server puts in an order 100 feet away at their respective location and it's a drink order, it will print at the bar. If it's a food order, it will print in the kitchen as needed. NO, they do NOT have to print at the same location that they entered the order and walk them back to the bar or kitchen.

YES, you can use the POS for merchandise and ticket sales. You can also scan barcodes with them if necessary as well.

The amount of POS stations necessary will depend largely on your overall layout and amount of servers or bartenders you will have on. No matter which one we discuss, the idea is to limit their distance to serving areas by putting the POS station in a centralized area kind of like a radius bubble. (Does this make sense?) That way the bartender or server will not have a long walk to a POS station no matter where they're at in the establishment. This speeds everything up and SPEED WILL BE KEY HERE.

So let's start with the idea that servers will only be focusing on the "private box seats" or "PBS area." (like that?) Anyway, let's just say that you have 2 servers per PBS area or 4 servers total for the PBS area (I don't have a good enough visual yet so I'm guessing). I would say that you would want 1 POS terminal or station on each end or for 2 servers each for a total of 2 POS stations. At the bars, if you're going to be bumping mad busy like I hope you will, you will probably want at least 4 if not 5 bartenders per bar at each of the main 2 bars. Maybe even 6 who knows? Anyway, going with 5 bartenders, I would say at minimum 2 POS stations and recommend at least 3 at each bar. Even if you have only 4 bartenders, you will probably want at least 3. Again, without layout this is a little tough but the main thing to remember here is SPEED. You don't want to make your bartenders have to wait to ring up drinks. The faster they can ring them up, the faster they can get to the next guest and repeat....and repeat....and so on. Cha-ching.

I know you mentioned how expensive a POS package can be for your bar but keep in mind it really isn't the equipment or hardware that's the expensive part. It's the software, service, installation, training, and programming. That's the expensive part and just ask Chris about that. If you're more interested about this part of POS, see my comments here: http://www.nightclub-business.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5214 I know there's a lot of info here but worth the read if you have the time. It should help clear up a lot of questions regarding POS.

Anyway, if you have a bar in the VIP lounge and have 3 or 4 bartenders, you will want at least 2 POS systems and possibly 3 depending on volume. If you have a few servers, (let's say 2 or 3) you will want at least 1 and maybe 2. Like I mentioned, SPEED is the key because the last thing you want is to have guests waiting to get their drinks because their server or bartender is waiting to put their order into the POS system because another server is ALREADY on it. ESPECIALLY IN THE VIP lounge.

But keep in mind, A LOT of this can be overcome by training your employees properly. Although our set up was small and only had 1 terminal, we overcame the issue of waiting because servers and bartenders realized that they had plenty of things to do INSTEAD of standing around waiting for a terminal to become free. But we had food too so I can't remember if you have that or not. This will make a difference as well because it takes longer to put in food orders than drink orders. We always had 2 people using the same POS system and sometimes 2 servers and a bartender and me every now and then for a total of 3 1/2. 3 1/2 WTF??? But I would like to think I did a pretty good job training my employees. I did notice when we first opened that there was a lot of just standing around when there were other things to get done like beverage refills, taking food out, greeting new guests, checking on guests, and etc. Again, there are ways around a limited POS system BUT, THERE ARE LIMITATIONS, SO DON'T OVERDO IT!!

Generally, your bartenders will require more POS terminals because they are putting in so many drink orders that they use it more frequently. Therefore, there would be more bartenders on one terminal. So Ideally, you would really want to have 1 POS terminal per bartender or bartender station. But again, even the fastest bartenders are NOT going to constantly be on it so there is a little break when they're making drinks, taking orders (customers screaming it at them), stocking beer, and other things. So they can share sometimes although it's NOT recommended. As I keep stating, your layout will depend on the requirements as well, and more importantly, your volume. If your super busy, you'll need more terminals. If not, you'll need less. Let's hope for the first one.

I would say that with 2 main bars, a smaller VIP lounge, and an even smaller backstage bar (optional?) I would probably say that AT MINIMUM you will need: 9 POS terminals, 7 bar & server station receipt printers, 1 kitchen printer, 6 cash drawers, and 1 main back office or main database/server computer with 24" lcd screen should cost you around $15,000 to $17,000. The software could run you between $5000 to $12,000 depending on which company you go with. The installation, programming, and training could range between $3000 to $6000 for a grand total of between $23000 to $35,000 for your POS system. I didn't include a POS terminal for the ticket office and backstage bar because I figured it would be easier to just use a cash register but maybe not for accouting reasons. Also, if you wanted to include and extra terminal for each bar I mentioned and one more terminal for the servers in the VIP lounge in case you're busier than anticipated (good problem), that could add between $8000 and $14000. We'll talk more when you get closer these are just estimates without a layout and volume levels.

2. On to the beer taps. It could be a toss up on the amount of bottle to draft beer you would sell but I would bet that it will be draft in your venue. It usually is in my experience. The same reasons apply to your amount of tap stations as the POS stations. SPEED. On each bar, I would recommend 2 tap stations if you have 4 or 5 bartenders. If you have 6 bartenders, I recommend 3 tap stations. Again, same variables as POS. The more you have, the more you can serve and faster. Now sure, this will add to your upfront costs but a 6 or 8 head tap station will run you about $900 to $1500 new. This is where I wouldn't be against looking for some used equipment. Same with a few of the bar equipment items.

If you decide to only go with only 2, that's fine. One thing I learned though is to make sure that you have the same brand at every tap station. The bar I used to work at tried to have a 2 tap station set up on their main bar and small bar. The main bar had 4 bartenders and only 3 cash registers and the small bar had 3 bartenders and 3 cash registers. At each tap station they had a different type of beer so everybody was constantly having to run all the way to the other end of the bar to get the beer ordered. On the big bar with 4 bartenders, we were constantly running into each other and it was THE BIGGEST, MOST INEFFICIENT, CONTERPRODUCTIVE PAIN IN THE ASS EVER!! EVER!!! Since I left 2 years ago, they have upgraded from 2 or 3 faucet tap stations with multiple beers on them to 6 faucet tap settups at each station with the same beer at every station. Go figure. Much needed.

They still haven't added another cash register for the 4th bartender on the main bar after 5 years but that's another story. The thing is, they're busy enough that they DESPERATELY NEED it and the cash registers they have only cost $650 and another $150 for installation. They could pay for it in a month or two with their volume easy. Sorry to get off subject here but hopefully you get the point of NOT LIMITING YOUR TAP STATIONS OR POS terminals and cutting yourself short.

On the soda bar guns and tap lines for each bar, you should be able to utilize one main pop system for every bar but will need CO2 pumps at each bar. NO, you cannot use the same tanks for beer. You should also be able to use one main glucol settup for the beer system. Maybe not though. Definately check with Pepsi & Coca-Cola and the beer vendors to see what they have to say regarding distance and amount of bar guns. You will want a pop gun at each bartending station and possibly at each server station as well. I would just recommend having the servers get all drinks behind the bar though. That will help keep at least a few equipment costs AND maintenance down to a minimum by not having it out in the open to the general public.

I have minimal experience with a glycol system other than pouring beer from one at that same bar I mentioned. Here's my take on the glycol system. It works great when it's working correctly but when it's not, the beer pours like shit and tastes like crap. But, I don't think that our boss maintained it when it wasn't working right and it never did. We ALWAYS had foamy beer (which wasted product) and he ALWAYS tried to blame it on the length of the run from the downstairs cooler (30-40 ft) to the bars. The thing was is that when I worked at a Sheraton Hotel, they had the same type of system and it was even further away (50-60ft.) and it poured only a half of a pint of foam on the first pour of the day. After that, it was perfect all night until the keg ran out. So, I'm sure a glycol system is fine when settup and maintained properly but I guess this goes with anything.

Again, get many different quotes and recommendations from your beer vendors. Don't just listen to one. I know one bar in our area decided to spend about $30,000 on a system out of California. It's said to be able to pour extremely cold beer (like 20 or so less degrees) and at a very fast speed WITHOUT foam (3 seconds for a 16 ounce glass with no head). You can add head as needed. Their bar held between 400 and 475 people but they were known for tap beer.

3. You're right on the backstage bar. If it's only going to be used minimally, I wouldn't probably put a POS or expensive bar back there. A one or two keg cooler should be good enough for the bands and their peeps. I know you want to accomodate them, but I would think you would want to make sure that they don't get too wasted to perform. So actually, you might want to forget the backbar idea alltogether and just have them either use another bar or stock them with whatever they need each time. Your call though.

4. On the backbar recommendations, don't get too far off track based on what I said. Yes, I did make the recommendation to "attempt" to minimize the use of backbar coolers and equipment due to employees turning around and not facing the crowd for a number of reasons.

1. They can't see guests and get their drink orders as their making current orders. This speeds things up and is efficient.
2. Bartenders can't monitor crowd activity like fights or star guests or VIP's.
3. Guests have to look at a bartenders back. Guests want to be seen so the bartender NEEDS to face them, even when pouring a beer, mixing a drink, or ringing up something on a POS system. Again, face forward.
4. It's inefficient. Too many times the bartender is moving back and forth searching for things in a cooler.
5. Theft. Guests may try to steal something off of your bar like tips, liquor bottles, glassware, and god knows what else. Even if you have a video surveillance system, by the time you watch the recorded video, the guest is long gone if you even recorded it in the first place.

In my opinion, EVERYTHING SHOULD FACE FORWARD OR FACE THE CROWD TO SEE WHAT'S GOING ON.

Now, Chris and "DIRTY" is the exception as may be many other bars. Everyone has their reasons for setting it up the way THEY feel it will BEST SUIT THEIR NEEDS. But at least keep these things in mind when contemplating anything to the rear of a bartender.

One thing I would like to comment on regarding room, space, or size is to consider how tall and deep your equipment will need to be for a couple reasons.

1. This will sort of determine how tall and deep your bar and its top needs to be. We actually made ours a few inches (3" or 4") taller to accomodate more room under it but also not make bartenders bend over as much. Of course, you can't make it too tall or guests won't be able to feel comfortable sitting at it.
2. We also made our bar top a little wider or deeper by about 4" to accomodate our equipment better too. If you notice in most bars and Chris's "Dirty", you will see the beer coolers sticking a long way out compared to the edge of the bar closest to the bartender. In my opinion, that again means the bartenders have to lean way over and eventually gets painful on your back. Not to mention if they have to jump over the bar to stop a fight they'll have to leap that much further. Refer to the vids earlier in this thread. The hard thing is that this is very common in many bars because it was a traditional measurement so, most of the time, the equipment usually ends up sticking out quite a bit. The other thing to think about is the overhang of the bar on the guests side. If you don't have a very wide or deep bar top, guests end up not having any room to put their legs under the bar and lean up against it. So that's another reason why we increased the width of the bar top to accomodate the guests AND our bar equipment a little better. Others may have a different opinion on this.

As far as the distance between bars, this is not uncommon and cannot usually be prevented. You don't want to have everything in one place or you will have congestion. So, having a major distance between your bars is ALMOST inevitable. Any sizable bar has what's called "barbacks or bar stockers or runners". These are people that stock the bar with anything it or the bartenders needs. Things like: hauling ice, filling bottled beer, garnishes, replacing kegs, stocking coolers, replacing empty liquor bottles, helping wash dishware, trash and end-of-shift cleaning, and just about anything else the bartender needs done. They make a decent minimal wage but get tipped out by the bartenders based on their performance and hard work. In the bar I worked at, they had 2 barbacks for 7 bartenders on a busy night. 1 for each bar. You will probably need at least this many if not 3. 1 for each bar and 1 for the VIP and backstage area.

I have a question or recommendation about something you didn't mention. You're going to have a ticket sales area for your venue correct? As you're designing your layout, I would think that you should limit this space to facing outside your establishment and not taking up a lot of space inside. That way, you can maximize your space for your inside guests and get more in. But, you'll have to decide how accomodating you want to be. Take Chris's "DIRTY" for example. They have a pretty big entryway for guests to stand in as they're waiting to get in during the cold months. During the warm months, they're hoping to use this area for a bar area. Good idea to utilize the space for two different needs or accomodations. I, for one, would think that people wouldn't really be too upset to stand in line and wait to buy a ticket. It's like going to a movie and they always have this settup. At least in the movies. But maybe you feel it's better to get them inside. In Chitown, it does get a little windy and cold in the winter so, you might want to not make your guests stand in line. Again, I would think that they won't be too concerned with standing in line to get a ticket but that's just me. Get some more opinions.

Sorry so long again. I hope I didn't have any misspellings. Hope this helped.

[robos99]

I have a question or recommendation about something you didn't mention. You're going to have a ticket sales area for your venue correct? As you're designing your layout, I would think that you should limit this space to facing outside your establishment and not taking up a lot of space inside. That way, you can maximize your space for your inside guests and get more in. But, you'll have to decide how accomodating you want to be. Take Chris's "DIRTY" for example. They have a pretty big entryway for guests to stand in as they're waiting to get in during the cold months. During the warm months, they're hoping to use this area for a bar area. Good idea to utilize the space for two different needs or accomodations. I, for one, would think that people wouldn't really be too upset to stand in line and wait to buy a ticket. It's like going to a movie and they always have this settup. At least in the movies. But maybe you feel it's better to get them inside. In Chitown, it does get a little windy and cold in the winter so, you might want to not make your guests stand in line. Again, I would think that they won't be too concerned with standing in line to get a ticket but that's just me. Get some more opinions.

Being that this will be in the Chicago area, I'd like to get people in as fast as possible. Now with a concert venue, people will be outside waiting to get in before the doors have opened, but once that initial rush has been taken care of, usually there are very few people coming and going. It hasn't been decided yet if re-entry will be allowed. There are many reasons for and against this, although I think I'm leaning towards not allowing it. The speed at which we can get people inside will also depend on how I setup the IDing. This will be an all ages venue, and anyone of drinking age needs to get a wristband to buy or consume alcohol. This way, someone can't just buy the drink and give it to their underage friend. The one question is whether to ID everyone at the door, or to ID those who order drinks at the bar, on a person by person basis. I think it'll be more secure to ID everyone at the door, all at once, but this will also take longer to get people in. So having some indoor queuing area will be nice. One plus is that the building I have in mind has a long awning covering the entire front sidewalk area. Even though this is exposed to the cold, it will protect people from rain and snow.

I think this awning, combined with some room inside the establishment, should take care of any issues concerning that, and free up more space for other things.

[scott1988]

DEFINATELY WITHOUT A DOUBT do your IDing at the door for everyone. Almost everyone is used to this by now because all states are so strict about enforcing the underage alcohol consumption limit. So, it's just easier. Sure, it may slow down your line a little but not enough to NOT do it this way.

[walawdog]

How are you going to keep someone from ordering a drink and then letting their underage friends have sips of it...are you going to seperate the two groups....something like a beer garden area inside the venue, and then not allow any drinks to go outside of that area?

[rootsreality]

Have you considered installing separate walk-in coolers for each bar area. They aren't that expensive and the reliability and convenience may outweigh the expense, particularly when the alternative is a glycol system.

It seems to me that you have a huge dream here, but you are trying to cut costs in the wrong areas. The quality of the infrastructure will ultimately impact employee morale and the quality of the customer experience. Save your nickels and dimes elsewhere.

[robos99]

How are you going to keep someone from ordering a drink and then letting their underage friends have sips of it...are you going to seperate the two groups....something like a beer garden area inside the venue, and then not allow any drinks to go outside of that area?

That would be of some concern, but I think with good security and the wristband system, we can prevent most of that from going on. Obviously it's not possible to stop 100% of it, unless you simply don't allow anyone underage inside.

Having separate areas for drinking isn't really an option in this building.


Have you considered installing separate walk-in coolers for each bar area. They aren't that expensive and the reliability and convenience may outweigh the expense, particularly when the alternative is a glycol system.


Initially I considered the cost of installing 2 walk-ins to be too high, but I didn't compare that to the cost of the glycol system. That's a good point and I'll need to look into that further since it may be more cost effective to go with 2 walk-ins. The one downside is that the kegs won't be stocked in one central location, but this would allow more room for kegs and other back stock.


It seems to me that you have a huge dream here, but you are trying to cut costs in the wrong areas. The quality of the infrastructure will ultimately impact employee morale and the quality of the customer experience. Save your nickels and dimes elsewhere.

I'm not necessarily trying to cut any costs. I'm trying to be realistic with my costs. This entire thing is in the planning stages still and I want to get a realistic idea of how much this is going to cost. Obviously having 3 ice machines and 2 walk-ins versus 1 of each will affect the total cost a significant amount. I'm trying the find the best way to do this, without spending excessive amounts of money.

But some very good points so far. You've all made me look at things I never even thought to look at, so thank you for all the input so far.

[clubdesign]

For a venue that is 50,000 sf two bars 20 feet in length will not be enough for the main room. We ran a bar in Chicago that was 50,000 sf. We had a 4 station octagon bar, two thirty foot bars, a racetrack bar 30 ft each side
a wall bar 36 ft long and a small vip bar.This was in addition to six to 10 beer tubs and shot girls too! The main bar had 4 bartendars,the thirty footers had three bartendars, the racetrack was a four person bar, the vip had one bartendar. We normally ran 24-30 ****tail waitresses with a server station dedicated at each bar.Each bar had it's own barback, plus on busy nights two barbacks assigned just to garbage, one to condiments and ice. This venue was smokin hot and the staff worked hard to keep up.
As far as POS each bartendar had their own register and ****tail banking.

We did have two ice machines evenly split for distribution. The Co2 system can be a central system. Beer uses nitrogen mix.

relook at your floor plan as you will be leaving $$$ on the floor not being able to serve guests. Give me a pm if you want to go thru your project as we are located in Chicago
Dave

[Michael Black]

I agree with Dave that those 2 planned bars won't even come close to covering a 50,000 sq ft place, especially a concert setting. That would be more for maybe a 2,500-3500 sq ft place. You have ambitious goals, but I would recommend starting on a much smaller scale. This will be a huge undertaking and expensive even at the lowest cost buld-out. Excalibur is about 45,000 sq feet to give you an idea and they do not use all the space they can. Besides the start-up costs, you may get into a bidding war or battle over the other players in the Chicago concert Market. House of Blues was able to do this because they had a corporate team, an established chain with great resources and connections, and deep pockets. I assume since the music side is your forte, you have given serious consideration to this. Yes, IF you have the $ and can afford a top team to pull it off, it could be very lucrative, but also a huge risk.

Added:I see now you also planned on 2 more smaller bars which helps but still not nearly enough.

[scott1988]

I do agree with Clubdesign and Michael. I wanted to say something but didn't want to completely kill your idea from the get go.

Even downsizing your place is still not going to be enough and like they said, competing with the other established places in Chitown may be hard. Not saying it can't be done, but it's going to be hard.

Regarding costs, where I'm from I would say that if you wanted to build a 1,000 person concert venue in our city you're probably looking at between $5-$6.5 million with land. But take into consideration that our land is probably half, if not, a fourth of what the land value is in Chitown. Plus, building costs and labor is probably a little more. So, I'm going to assume that if you wanted to build this in Chitown, you're probably looking at between $8-$10 million for a 1,000 person place brand new with nice decor. Am I way off here guys? Also, if you wanted to go back to your original plan and get the capacity up to 2,500 to 3,000, you're probably looking at more around the $15-$20 million dollar range if you're going high end decor and sound equipment like you wanted. Again, am I way off? I'm just speculating.

Robos, when you mentioned $2 million originally for this, right away it made me think of my experiences and what I'm familiar with. Although I refer to it often, it's what I'm familiar with and the bar I worked at held about 750 people. Back in 1994 when they first bought the land and built the building, I believe they spent between $3 and $3.5 million for their place and it is mainly a bar (sort of nightclub) with a super small kitchen and a good sized dancefloor. I know this is different from your place but in relevance, it's more than what you originally had in mind and was about 1/3 to 1/4 the size. Plus, these prices were 14 years ago.

So, keep going with your idea but get some real numbers and bids. This may be hard to do until you get a building picked out and I know that you'll be looking into leasing but the interior renovations, fixtures, and equipment is definately going to be expensive.