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View Full Version : Should I Go Forward With This....



slska20
01-21-2009, 11:20 PM
Ok, guys, I'm asking for some help here. I've never worked in a restaurant or bar, but I've got what I think is an opportunity and I would like some advice.....here's the quick story....

There is a bar in a medium sized town not far from my house, that was named a bar & grill, but was more of a bar only as nobody went there to eat. The ownership did some shady stuff and it was shut down not long ago. I talked with the owner of the building and he said the lease was $3500 per month. It's got 2 big rooms, several TV's and a huge bar with a full kitchen (and $30,000 worth of equipment according to him). It's in a downtown area's "entertainment district." There is a quality restaurant and bar a few doors down, but they don't serve "Sports Bar" type food, which is what I'd want to do. One of the rooms has a stage for a band to play. Currently, I have a sales job that brings in around $55,000 per year. The owner of the building claims that there were $10,000-$12,000 worth of credit cards receipts per month under the other owners, and that doesn't include the cash sales. But then again, they were putting emphasis on the "bar" aspect and ignoring food which means I would sell less alcohol than they did. I could probably get the place up and running with insurance, inventory, etc for around $13,000.

My question to you people is, #1 Does this sound like a good deal? #2 How difficult would it be for me to learn the restaurant part of it, having no experience & #3 Could it provide me with a similar income to what I'm doing now if I work it myself?

I don't want to jump into this and find myself unemployed in 6 months. Thank you in advance for your help.

slska20

originolsin
01-24-2009, 04:05 PM
If you can get help from someone you trust with the food part, and if you can hire some good bartenders, and if you have about 20k saved up and are willing to live on half your salary for a while- then maybe it will make it through.
See Buying A Bar thread-very insightful and will give you a good idea of alot of things you might not have thought about.
If you had experience owning- I would say jump on that, did you even need to ask? But without experience, you may not be seeing the little things.
Research, research, research!

UnderDawg
01-25-2009, 07:22 PM
i'm in the same position as you, but the bar i'm trying for is up and running still; mostly alcohol sales, they do have full bar menu; but i want to get more food out of the kicthen,(son's a chef)and haas 6 yrs experience in pub & restaurant operations; i'm just scared about the economy