bar/restaurant hypothetical

[ZKaudio]

So, you are buying and re-modelling/naming/structuring a bar... it will undoubtedly break even(worst case), but you realize that you are making lease payments based on 24hrs a day and only using the property from 9pm-2am... is it worth it to add a small kitchen and gain revenues as a restaurant by day? Or will costs/hassles exceed benefits...go

 

[calveless wonder]

absolutely.....this is how alot of high end clubs and lounges recoup their investment..through food. You see it all through south beach, NYC and other major night-life sectors.

You have it as a restaurant then turn it into a lounge/club after a certain hour. If you have a good menu and atmosphere, assuming you can generate sales....it can be very profitable, of course this involves alot more staff and resources.

you have to hire chefs, servers, busboys and managers etc. As well as deal with food inventory and all the associated licenses.

Honestly, it depends if you feel you are capable of turning it into a restaurant that can reflect the image of the bar. If you're limited by kitchen space or whatever, it may not be worth it.
Your service and theme have to be consistent.

If it's a really nice place, charge 25-30 dollar a plate for entrees...get a great master chef in there and make sure your wine menu is well rounded

oh yeah, and attract high end clientele

 

[MattTheSkywalker]

You're quite optimistic on the potential ZK. Many bars fail, sadly.

In FL, serving food often makes it easier to obtain a liquor license - there is something called a "COP license", which means consumption on premises. This is expensive and limited by population growth. There is also an SRX license, which means "special restaurant exception". These are awarded to restaurants and allow you to serve liquor etc.

Not sure how it works in CA.

If I were you, I would not serve food. I would concentrate on one thing, and be the best at that.

Just my .02.

 

[gotmilk]

is it worth it to add a small kitchen and gain revenues as a restaurant by day? Or will costs/hassles exceed benefits...go

It depends on what kind of food you will serve and how much you can charge?

Eventually, you might even offer cheap items for happy hour such as pizza slices, potatoe wedges, and chicken wings..

I have a friend who owns a bar and his business picked up when he started serving lunch specials. Of course, he only serves food where he can make decent profit margins.

 

[ZKaudio]

this is more of an upscale martini lounge with vip table service... The cost of acquiring and employing a good enough chef to keep the food on par with the bar's atmosphere would be quite formidable. I'm already going to be able to cut a bunch of stocking costs for the wine/fine liquor cellar b/c there is a supplier a block away who is open all hours of the night. So as rare items are demanded, they can be retreived lickity split w/o having to have 30 bottles of vintage cristal in inventory. Mind you this is still in the planning stages... i have not yet invested a penny. I'm just looking for people's opinions on the matter. I toyed with the idea of an oyster bar by day, as we are a beachfront community, but they are actually quite high maintainence/operating cost.

 

[manny78]

WHat are the rules in Cali ? As Matt said, it can be a pain in the ass in some States. Here it's kosher to sell alcohol till 3am as long as you dont serve food. But then if you wanna do both, you need a special license and people can't just order alcohol (they need to order at least one meal/person). These license are expensive and that's why many restaurants around here have the "Bring your own liquor" concept.

The few bar which actually tried your concept were fancy restaurants exploiting some loopholes in our liquor's laws and turning into bars at 10PM. I've never seen that hapening the other way (bar to restaurant)....

 

[ZKaudio]

the liquor license isn't a problem, surprisingly enough... I punched some numbers into a b. plan and came up w/ some interesting data... so far based on my research, the college bars round here make way more take home than the upscale places... no overhead on the watering holes.

 

[plrpower]

Did you ever think about buying a building insted of leasing. I see that your in Santa Barbara it may be very expensive ahhahha. I like bars that are restaurants during the day they are usally nicer than regular bars and i think they attract a hight class crowd. Good luck.

 

[ZKaudio]

typical commercial space the size i need would cost around 3 mil... but the comparable leases are about 10k/ month so buying might be an option... also depends on how intensive the design will be on the building structure.