Starting up a beer bar cafe

[Craig Farrand]

Hi People

I am in decision mode about weather to open a Bar/Cafe in a rural North Island New Zealand town.

The premises was formally a cafe so there is not much structural or fitting out work to be done on the place, Just some bar alterations, fitting an ice bank chiller and beer display fridge, as well as cosmetic work to create the feel we are after.

Licences to get, business loans etc.

All of these i have my head around,

But i do hear a lot of horror stories about startup bars which fail,

I'd like to get info from anyone whom has been down this road about the pitfalls they faced monetarily and whatever else.

Expenses you never thought of, how much profit can be made in various facets of the business (coffee, beer, food)Summer versus winter custom? anything you think of that might have surprised you either good or bad..

The town is not ready for a full craft beer onslaught yet, but offering some beers from both sides of the coin., and down the track maybe a small Farra type brewery to offer a house beer or two.

simple but hearty food and a relaxed wooden environment inside and out.

Any advice from anyone whom has been here before would be gratefully received.

Cheers

Craig

[Smiffy]

 A friend of mine (with zero experience in the industry, and little as a consumer)  bought a bar as a going concern. He lost money every week for the year he kept it going. In my opinion he had two problems. 1) Location, he was off the beaten track so got no passing trade. 2) He had no Unique Selling Point, so people weren't prepared to go out of their way to go there.

In my opinion, you need both. You need a good location to get the passing trade, and you need a USP to get people to come to you. To offer any opinion on your location (from a customer's point of view) you would have to tell us where the premises are.

Smiffy (Paraparaumu)

[Craig Farrand]

Thanks Smiffy

Due to various reasons we can't tell you exactly where we are yet... sorry

But not off the beaten track and within 25 minutes of a Big town so could definitely become a destination if we got it right. Not much foot traffic but plenty of drive by.

Cheers for your input

Craig

[Paul Finney]

From what i remember of working back in the hospo industry, you tend to make more margin on drinks as you only have to pay the waiter serving it, rather than paying chef, waiter, kitchen, ingrediants that may go off etc. Of course that is only a simple look at it, but if you have a license anyways then i would think it would be a winner.

There are a few good examples around the South Island that you may want to have a look at. Brew Moon is one that sticks out, and there is one just opened after the Geraldine turn off in land Valley Brewing company.

Good luck in your adventure.

Paul

[Paul Finney]

Oh, one other thing. Make sure you can get a license for where you want to set up as the people who did the Valley Brewing comp in Geraldine got a massive amount of resistance from the locals, which is quite odd as the locals all seemed to be cows! Eventually they had to have some pretty restricting times they could serve their beer.

[Grant R Baker]

I remember when you could only get that Valley Brewing beer in the cheese shop in their tourist trap shopping area. I would guess it was a source of the issue.