[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Starting a Night Club (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 7/31/2011 8:40:47 PM EDT
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Alright guys, first thing is first, anybody here own or owned there own night club?
A close group of freinds and I (Im talking 20 years close) have been talking for a while about trying to establish a night club. And I think were going to start setting goals and planning. Were all between 21 and 25. Most college grads, some still in college. Were all pretty intelligent with several Ivy Leaguers in the group. Were not making a huge amount of money, however one of the group does make $85k+, and others will be making that in time. We've set a goal of 2 years, (not sure how realistic that is). We've been around the world to the best night clubs in the world, and we def have the ideas needed to make a great club. So has anyone started their own nightclub (bar would be appropriate too I guess) and what tips/hints can you give me about the process. |
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I oversaw a family members pool hall/ night club for a little while (Belltown Billiards in Seattle). It's a fucking NIGHTMARE really. Don't expect it to be like a movie, it's more like being the principle of a school. Most of the employee's will steal cash and booze, or let people in for free and give away drinks, wich is no different than theft (all "employee loss"). Get a TON of resume's on file, don't be afraid to shitcan people quick, don't make friends with the employee's until they've been there a long time if ever. There's room for a LOT of profit, but once you've recouped your investments, and made some money, think about selling before income drops off. As owners, set up a rotation so that one of you is there every day, make sure you run the numbers every night. It's a balancing act between letting the employee's do their job, and micro managing the piss out of everything. If you keep up the image of watching everything like a hawk, they'll keep on the straight and narrow. Get lax, and they'll start taking that "inch" and try to take miles. I found it effective to turn a blind eye to little stuff, so they would keep doing it and i could track it, instead of clamping down so they found other ways to lie cheat or steal. I'll think of more stuff later, gotta hit the rack! |
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I always thought of night clubs as vanity businesses –– people run them after they've made their money, or to create losses or to launder money.
Being in your early 20s and managing people sucks –– you've got to deal with security, drugs, drug dealers in your club, alcohol enforcement, et cetera. Your staff WILL steal alcohol and cash from you; a lot of times it's enough to put night clubs out of business. My grandfather had a saying he used when I was talking about starting up a party bus company in my early 20s. He told me I was getting ready to grab a bear by the tail –– meaning that I couldn't get away from it. I ended up not doing the bus thing. |
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Spelling and grammar must not be required to graduate a fancy university or to consider yourself intelligent these days.  i agree. op needs to grow up. make your own $, stop spending daddy's $. right now, you think clubs are cool. what will you think in 10 years? just my 2 cents. -tom |
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Spelling and grammar must not be required to graduate a fancy university or to consider yourself intelligent these days. i agree. op needs to grow up. make your own $, stop spending daddy's $. right now, you think clubs are cool. what will you think in 10 years? just my 2 cents. -tom 
How did you come to that conclusion from the OP post? |
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what frightens me about your post is the line "we def have the ideas needed to make a great club." please trust me––everyone has 'ideas'. that's the easiest part of the business. but ideas don't make a great club. what makes a club great is...there's no other way to say it...the love. i don't mean the love of being a club owner––that's a drug anyone would enjoy. what i mean is the love of actually doing the shit work that makes the joint operate. the love of putting together a top flight staff, and (more difficult) keeping them. the love of cleaning restrooms. the love of keeping the books precisely. notice that all those verbs––action words. if you don't love doing all those things for the sake of making your guests happy, then save yourself the time, frustration, and sleep deprivation and find another line of business. does that make sense? if your goal is to "be a club owner" rather than to "operate a club", you're probably not going to succeed. understand, i'm a manager, not an owner, so i have a bit of a different perspective. something that immediately strikes me is that you guys are quite young. i'm not going to judge you, but be advised that when i said it's a drug, i mean it––being the king of the club is one of the most addictive feelings imaginable. controlling that is going to be a serious challenge for young guys. trust me––i've watched an almost identical project go from flush to busted because the partners (a group of highly experienced bar veterans) couldn't control themselves. i can't really give you any good info without knowing more about the place, but if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask. |
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I was a club dj for a long time. THe most successful night clubs have a floorplan design that allows all age until midnight as well as 18 and up after midnight with a seperate bar area that is part of the same general area. Kind like a upper level bar that wraps around the dance floor like a balcony. Depending on where you live and your competition the music is second most important. The hip hop music is generally a good idea . It draws people constantly. If you have no real techno clubs around your place and are in a city with a good population with the right investment and booking list you can blow the hiphop clubs out of the water charging 20-40 dollars a head one night a week to hear orld famous techno djs as well as selling a shit load of alcohol. one other key ingredient is your sound system. places that cheap out on that always fail.if you have any more specific questions hit me up. I might know some people in your area that can organize some talent if you end up doing a techno night or something and plan on bringing in headliners. |
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I was a club dj for a long time. THe most successful night clubs have a floorplan design that allows all age until midnight as well as 18 and up after midnight with a seperate bar area that is part of the same general area. Kind like a upper level bar that wraps around the dance floor like a balcony. Depending on where you live and your competition the music is second most important. The hip hop music is generally a good idea . It draws people constantly. If you have no real techno clubs around your place and are in a city with a good population with the right investment and booking list you can blow the hiphop clubs out of the water charging 20-40 dollars a head one night a week to hear orld famous techno djs as well as selling a shit load of alcohol. one other key ingredient is your sound system. places that cheap out on that always fail.if you have any more specific questions hit me up. I might know some people in your area that can organize some talent if you end up doing a techno night or something and plan on bringing in headliners. and lotsa ecstasy  
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Your staff and business partners will steal money and alcohol from you like it's going out of style. only if they're poorly led. 
Sounds like a pretty big group of people trying to put this together. OP needs to specify how many. If you've got 5 people, all of them "owners" the place is going to be one gigantic pissing contest. Owner W will be fucking the bartender with the big tits who is drinking top shelf booze all night and stealing from the till, owners X, Y, and Z are going to get wise and want to toss her out, Owner W is going to raise hell. Owner V will have his nose in a big pile of coke supplied by the bouncer and won't care either way as long as there is still enough in the till for him to steal too. A business like a club needs one guy with a clear head and a nose for who is fucking him to be the King Hell Dictator of the operation if it's going to be successful. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Spelling and grammar must not be required to graduate a fancy university or to consider yourself intelligent these days. i agree. op needs to grow up. make your own $, stop spending daddy's $. right now, you think clubs are cool. what will you think in 10 years? just my 2 cents. -tom If you open a club, and sell mixed drinks for $7 a drink, and the bottle of vodka only cost you $7 wholesale, you will make your own money. In 10 years you could be sitting fat off of a club you operated well and sold off after 5 years for a Million or so. Just my .02 cents, from having actually been in the industry. |
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Quoted: That is one of the worst ideas I've heard in 2011. Unless you're super rich and looking for some sort of specialized deduction, or are planning on laundering money I would keep this one in the realm of Morpheus. a lot of it is based on lacation and competition. those two seem to be key elements around here. You can open the baddest club ever in phoenix and it will fail. open a shitty club a few miles over in scottsdale and you will be loaded even with competition. open a club somewhere wiht no club scene your fucked. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Your staff and business partners will steal money and alcohol from you like it's going out of style. only if they're poorly led. Sounds like a pretty big group of people trying to put this together. OP needs to specify how many. If you've got 5 people, all of them "owners" the place is going to be one gigantic pissing contest. Owner W will be fucking the bartender with the big tits who is drinking top shelf booze all night and stealing from the till, owners X, Y, and Z are going to get wise and want to toss her out, Owner W is going to raise hell. Owner V will have his nose in a big pile of coke supplied by the bouncer and won't care either way as long as there is still enough in the till for him to steal too. A business like a club needs one guy with a clear head and a nose for who is fucking him to be the King Hell Dictator of the operation if it's going to be successful. Everything else, while important, comes second to this. |
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Reply back when you have bought the liquor license.
When you have that. I'll help further. Not sure where you are located but.. My area. 250K+ for a license. Last one sold for 265K. Then get a quote for your insurance. Then get a quote for the building. Then get a quote for interior of the building. (not including any a/v equipment yet) Thats just 4 things. 4 very basic things. There are about 150 more you need to consider. I was in the process of opening one. Me and two very good friends, one of which had big money to invest. We decided not to after our estimates added up to about 4 million. This was a small night club bar. Nothing huge. |
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I have worked in bars and nightclubs for decades at first as a D.J. and then mixing sound for hundreds of national acts.
In that time I have worked in dozens of nightclubs in Orlando,Jacksonville, Daytona and Gainsville Fl. I have also worked as an install tech for a large AV company and seen many owners take a major beat down trying to resell sound and light gear. Guess how many of those clubs are still open? Two, One is the largest gay club in north Florida and the other owned by someone that doesn't need the money and just likes to do big shows in a small venue. I will give you the same advise I give people looking to open a recording studio(something else I spent over a decade doing). Give me 100K cash and I will kick you in the nuts and save you several years of pain.(and in your case your friends). The only customers that seem to make money and stay open longer that 2 years were strip clubs and most of the owners were OMC's Good Luck |
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Quoted: I have worked in bars and nightclubs for decades at first as a D.J. and then mixing sound for hundreds of national acts. In that time I have worked in dozens of nightclubs in Orlando,Jacksonville, Daytona and Gainsville Fl. I have also worked as an install tech for a large AV company and seen many owners take a major beat down trying to resell sound and light gear. Guess how many of those clubs are still open? Two, One is the largest gay club in north Florida and the other owned by someone that doesn't need the money and just likes to do big shows in a small venue. I will give you the same advise I give people looking to open a recording studio(something else I spent over a decade doing). Give me 100K cash and I will kick you in the nuts and save you several years of pain.(and in your case your friends). The only customers that seem to make money and stay open longer that 2 years were strip clubs and most of the owners were OMC's Good Luck very good advice unless you have the perfect location. seriously the only clubs still standing here are the ones in downtown scottsdale where people go clubbing as well as two other hip hop clubs. I have seen so many come and go for so long it is crazy. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Your staff and business partners will steal money and alcohol from you like it's going out of style. only if they're poorly led. Sounds like a pretty big group of people trying to put this together. OP needs to specify how many. If you've got 5 people, all of them "owners" the place is going to be one gigantic pissing contest. Owner W will be fucking the bartender with the big tits who is drinking top shelf booze all night and stealing from the till, owners X, Y, and Z are going to get wise and want to toss her out, Owner W is going to raise hell. Owner V will have his nose in a big pile of coke supplied by the bouncer and won't care either way as long as there is still enough in the till for him to steal too. A business like a club needs one guy with a clear head and a nose for who is fucking him to be the King Hell Dictator of the operation if it's going to be successful. Everything else, while important, comes second to this. completely agree. |
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Quoted: Your staff and business partners will steal money and alcohol from you like it's going out of style. Sounds like a very good way to get gray hairs, go broke, and break up a group of friends. This. Every young man gets liquoured up with his buddies and dreams of opening up a bar/night club/strip joint etc., and some are actually dumb enough to do it. My family in southern Michigan owns clubs that cater to college kids...the horror stories outweigh the good, and these are guys who have been doing it for years and know the business. |
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Your staff and business partners will steal money and alcohol from you like it's going out of style. only if they're poorly led.
Sounds like a pretty big group of people trying to put this together. OP needs to specify how many. If you've got 5 people, all of them "owners" the place is going to be one gigantic pissing contest. Owner W will be fucking the bartender with the big tits who is drinking top shelf booze all night and stealing from the till, owners X, Y, and Z are going to get wise and want to toss her out, Owner W is going to raise hell. Owner V will have his nose in a big pile of coke supplied by the bouncer and won't care either way as long as there is still enough in the till for him to steal too. A business like a club needs one guy with a clear head and a nose for who is fucking him to be the King Hell Dictator of the operation if it's going to be successful. Other than a clear leader, each owner has to do their fair share of work, otherwise someone's going to feel cheated and pull out. If that does happen, pray it isn't the guy who puts in the most time and money into the project. I couldn't count how many times I've been approached by friends who wanted to start a business, then couldn't find the time away from their spouse, children, or other responsibilities to make it work without someone else putting in more than their share of effort and time. |
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One of the local bars in Tampa that has 3 owners... they have a rule. If you eat or drink, you pay full price for it. No free drinks, no free drinks for friends or family.
Other than that, be ready to lose those friends. I don't know too many partnerships that work out. |
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Reply back when you have bought the liquor license. When you have that. I'll help further. Not sure where you are located but.. My area. 250K+ for a license. Last one sold for 265K. Then get a quote for your insurance. Then get a quote for the building. Then get a quote for interior of the building. (not including any a/v equipment yet) Thats just 4 things. 4 very basic things. There are about 150 more you need to consider. I was in the process of opening one. Me and two very good friends, one of which had big money to invest. We decided not to after our estimates added up to about 4 million. This was a small night club bar. Nothing huge. Is that a legitimate price listed in the State regulations, or is that with "extra fees" for bribes or whatever included? Seems a little high, but I really have no idea. I can't believe a liquor license is that much for the restaurants and bars around here. Doesn't seem like any of them could manage that. |
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Have any of you worked in nightclubs before? I would work at least a year, keeping your eyes and ears open and you should ask the owner that you want to get into management. Most will be willing to talk your ear off and give all the advice/experience you need.
And I would also ask to get moved around to the different jobs so you can learn it all. |