Beer Bar

[kingkoehne]

Beer Lovers, need some advice!!!
For the last 2 years I have been focusing on opening a bar, a beer bar, up in Northern California. I grew up here, high school and college, where I got my undergraduate in business. As you all know, nor cal is the epicenter for craft beer. So me and buddy, a chef, have decide to start our beer bar. I'm wondering if anyone out there has any positive advice?? I will have about 24 drafts, and a vault of bottles beers, from all around the world. If you have any experience or any advice, it will be greatly helpful. Also anyone looking to be part of this new venture please let me know. Thanks guys

 

[aryoung1980]

My suggestion is to have plenty of beer menus and keep them up to date. The bar I work in has 30 beers on tap and roughly another 30 bottled. Our beer menus always seem to be behind and it's hard for our customers (and bartenders) to always know what we have in stock. Good luck in your venture!

 

[olz431]

Where do you work aryoung? See if you can get in touch with the owners of Lowlands Grand Cafes. They are local to milwaukee and have kind of a chain of bars in the area that caters to excellent variety and quality of beers and decent food. they might be able to help you in general as Milwaukee is also a kind of epicenter for craft brews and a culture of enjoying that beer. I know they have injected a large amount of capitol into the establishments they run... Hope this helps http://www.lowlandsgroup.com/

 

[broadbill]

serving them in the style-appropriate glass is a must. Good idea to figure out way to keep glassware from walking out the door.

+1 to keeping menus up to date...tablets seem to be a new thing for menus these days....thought about that?

I would say location and atmosphere is everything....as you said NoCal is the epicenter of craft beer...its been that way for 10-15 years now....probably a pretty competitive scene.

good luck!

 

[cknittle]

There is a program, I think it's called beer finder or something. It keeps what you order and have on tap in an online database that you can print out your menus on regular paper each day. Also, look at apps for smartphones such as tap hunter. That is how I decide where I want to go to dinner. It lets you know what bars and restaurants have what on tap/casks and in bottles.

 

[unionrdr]

Not to mention good food pairings withe basic styles you'll offer. And good value for the quality of said food. Don't price yourself out of the market. Car & steel companies learned that the hard way.
And getting quality basic ingredients for the least amount of money while maintaining that level of quality. Like I do with my beers. Going partial mash from AE saves $10-$12 per batch on average. Starting yeast washing,that'll knock off a couple bucks. Found local spring water for 10c per gallon vs 79c per in the store. That sort of thinking must be part of your mindset. So with all the quality home grown meats,vegetables,fruits,etc out your way,that should make it a bit easier. Good luck on your new venture.

 

[kingkoehne]

So basically, I have been working on this business plan for over a month now, I want it to be perfect to attract potently investors. The problem I'm having is the estimate of costs. I figure kegs would cost from 80 to 150, with 124 pints to a keg. A lot of my beer will be imported, so I factored in a high value for that. The really issue is the cost of bottles. My "bottle service" will be an important factor in my total revenue. Although I'm estimating my gross margin will be a lot smaller than my drafts, I still don't know how to estimate the costs because bottled beer is so variable. Does anyone have any ideas of what costs might be for Belgium bottled beers, German beers, Dutch beers, Czech beers and English? You can see I'm going to have a lot of international beers at my beer bar.

 

[dkwolf]

Might be worth calling a distributor (you're going to need to talk to one eventually anyway) and see if they can shoot you a price quote on bottles.

 

[teal]

I would HIGHLY suggest working in a craft beer bar or any bar first. OR getting on with a distributor.

1. give you inventory experience
2. give you contacts/networking

There are a million and ten things a bar owner has to be on top of. Some hands on experience would help.

 

[aryoung1980]

Where do you work aryoung? See if you can get in touch with the owners of Lowlands Grand Cafes. They are local to milwaukee and have kind of a chain of bars in the area that caters to excellent variety and quality of beers and decent food. they might be able to help you in general as Milwaukee is also a kind of epicenter for craft brews and a culture of enjoying that beer. I know they have injected a large amount of capitol into the establishments they run... Hope this helps http://www.lowlandsgroup.com/

I work on the eastside near Cafe Hollander. I'm quite familiar with the Lowlands Group; my wife likes to get brunch at their places.

Why would I need their help? I'm not the OP just in case that's what you were thinking.

 

[hoppyhoppyhippo]

Beer Lovers, need some advice!!!
For the last 2 years I have been focusing on opening a bar, a beer bar, up in Northern California. I grew up here, high school and college, where I got my undergraduate in business. As you all know, nor cal is the epicenter for craft beer. So me and buddy, a chef, have decide to start our beer bar. I'm wondering if anyone out there has any positive advice?? I will have about 24 drafts, and a vault of bottles beers, from all around the world. If you have any experience or any advice, it will be greatly helpful. Also anyone looking to be part of this new venture please let me know. Thanks guys

one thing I'd recommend as a consumer is have a huge social media presence. It makes it easier to keep people up to date. I'd post your draft list at least once a week, encourage users to take pictures (like say a free pint to a random person who posts a photo at the bar or something like that)

 

[dkwolf]

one thing I'd recommend as a consumer is have a huge social media presence. It makes it easier to keep people up to date. I'd post your draft list at least once a week, encourage users to take pictures (like say a free pint to a random person who posts a photo at the bar or something like that)

That's not a bad idea -- maybe do a weekly drawing for patrons that check in to your bar on Untappd or something.

 

[cfonnes]

Waitress with big breasts is the best advice that I can give, besides informing you that the Pacific Northwest is the epicenter of craft brew.

 

[hoppyhoppyhippo]

That's not a bad idea -- maybe do a weekly drawing for patrons that check in to your bar on Untappd or something.

That also is a solid idea as well. One of the bars near me on seemingly slow days gives away "Ale House Bucks" which basically equals a cheap pint of beer, for the first person to post a picture of them drinking a certain beer (obviously that's not the most important thing) and I assume they only did it during slow days.

 

[Spintab]

Start cellaring beers now. There is a fantastic beer bar near me in Atlanta called Brickstore Pub. The coolest thing about the place is when they realize you're no average beer drinker they plop the cellar list in front of you. It is almost 10 pages long with beers dated back to 2006. You want as much local beer as possible on tap for the passerbys to enjoy and you need enough big big ticket beers for the uber zealous to pay for. Btw I don't mean like Lagunitas local. I mean the guy down the street brewing his ass off on a 1bbl system and looking for a break. As much beer as there is in nocal there is probably just as many brewers. If a brewer comes in and sees you carrying small local stuff, they'll come back just to give you money to support the little guys. Who knows, it could be their beer on tap at your bar someday.

 

[olz431]

I work on the eastside near Cafe Hollander. I'm quite familiar with the Lowlands Group; my wife likes to get brunch at their places.

Why would I need their help? I'm not the OP just in case that's what you were thinking.

Yeah I didn't seperate the questions. Lowlands is a successful group that i figured the op could get info from on mark ups and general business practice.

 

[kingkoehne]

Thanks guys, got my prices, got my distributors, got my beers, come have a beer!!!

 

[BoomerHarley]

where exactly are you located? Or will be?