None of us simply want to “open a bar”. A bar is a business, a company, and what all of us really want to do is open a successful bar; in short, each of us dreams, more or less in his depths, that his place will “break” and the money will flow into the drawer.
Since this is the hidden dream (or almost) there is no shortage of sites and experts who share ideas to increase the profits of a bar, to relaunch business, to attract customers.
Let’s see all the tips for choosing and building a successful bar.
1) The Fundamentals!
Just take a trip on the net: we find complex and convoluted recipes on the internet to open a successful bar, mathematical formulas and intricate calculations of the return rate of a customer or the order in which to write the products on the menu …
Well, for once, we will be brutal and controversial: these are details, important, but details, just small screws to be tightened at the end of the job. To open a successful restaurant you need, in order of importance:
- An entrepreneurial mindset (what grandparents called the business bump!)
- A great desire to study, experiment and grow.
- A good location …
That said, let’s start from the beginning, and broaden these concepts.
2) The Ideal Bartender? A mix of Kindness, Exhibitionism and Charisma
We put it here, but maybe it would be the voice that should stand first of all. You learn very well how to make cappuccinos or aperitifs (even with our courses !) But no school can ever teach us to be, in the soul, bartenders, or, more extensively, people who do hospitality.
The bartender, to be successful in a job in front of the public, must be a mix of different qualities. It must be polite, because a beautiful smile and a frank greeting are good for any customer who enters… who will also come in the next day…. He must even be an exhibitionist thread, let’s say he must have a sense of the stage(the bar counter) to be able to interpret well his art and the products he offers to the public, and to always be able to say the right word at the right time. Finally, and perhaps as a mix of these points, he must have charisma, know how to stand on the platform and dominate the place with his personality …
3) The Bump of Business
What is it that makes us immediately understand what the offer is, the type of place that is missing in our area? What is it that makes us feel equally on the fly if that type will be profitable or will not generate interesting income? What makes us understand the potential of a product, makes us think that it can really attract customers and makes us discard what instead risks attracting only us, but will be anonymous for customers? What is it that makes us grasp the needs of a customer, even what he does not tell us, and allows us to amaze and conquer him?
Here, this is the bump of business, a perception, an intuition, a flicker that takes us there, on the flow of cash … (you work for this right?). We have the bump of business?
4) The Choice of the Location
All the variables to consider when choosing the location to open a bar, for example – the number of people passing by, their behavior, their needs, dynamics of the neighborhood, the visibility from the outside and the presence of a summer space …
5) Make Statistics to Evaluate the Place
Large companies continuously invest in research and development, and pay offices to conduct surveys and market analyzes. In our own small way, and what we must do too. We begin to count how many people pass in front of our local future, to visit the premises of our competitors many times to evaluate how many receipts they issue, to evaluate which sectors of markets are discovered in our area. These are precious indications, even to decide not to OPEN the restaurant, in some cases it is the right choice even if it is tiring to take it …
6) Evaluate our Restaurant Looking at it From the Outside
It is not easy: when we think of opening a bar we naturally tend to fall in love with our idea, to see all the positive aspects without wanting to see the negative ones, tending to ignore them or in any case to think that we will overcome them without problems. It is a dangerous attitude, which risks making us ignore or underestimate serious critical issues. We try to look at our bar from the outside, with the customer’s eyes, as if we were the ones who had to decide whether to enter it or not, and remember that at this stage we can still choose, if a bar has some critical element simply look for another one. …
7) The Small Place is the Best Choice
Yes, when you want to open a successful bar, club or restaurant, but you are a beginner, it is better to start with a small location. It will be easier to manage, it will have lower management costs and will allow us to control it better, from the accounts to customer satisfaction!