How to Run a Beer and Wine Bar Business

Sunday, November 30, 2014

How to Run a Beer and Wine Bar Business

Beer and Wine Bar | Small Business Ideas

Everyone wants to relax after a long hour work or mental tension, then we look for a beer bar near by to chill. The business is more on weekends but no one minds to walk into a bar on weekdays too. Beer, ale and wine bar owners make good money over a week so do you want to be one among the proud beer bar entrepreneurs?

Opening your beer and wine bar was no doubt one of the most challenging things you've ever done. You got your permits, found retail space, laid in inventory and advertised to attract customers and set about taking care of them. The challenge isn't over yet. Now that it's time to focus on running your beer and wine bar, there are still several areas to concentrate on or be mindful of to make and keep your business a success.

Establish a signature malt beverage that your pub brew business can be known of

Branding is important in the business industry and you can take advantage of branding to market your brew pubs business. You can do this by marketing a beer or similar fermented beverage that is available in your pub brew business only. While you can still offer your clients the option to brew their own drinks, it will be helpful if you can offer a set of brewed beers that people will look for especially those who prefer not to concoct their own drinks and who have been satisfied with your pub brew’s specialty drinks. Many of the well known and established pub bars have become known and patronized because of the distinct taste of fermented drinks that they offer to their clients.

Make your pub brew an entertaining place to visit

Brew pubs nowadays are not only a good place for brew beer. People basically visit pub brew business establishments to have fun. You should therefore make the most of your clients’ visit to your pub brew by not just offering them with quality drinks but providing them with excellent service as well. You can do this by offering good food and quality entertainment to your patrons. You can provide game areas where you clients can play indoor sports like billiards. You can also install a big screen TV in your pub bars premises where your visitors can watch the shows that they don’t want to miss while enjoying some drinks with their friends in your brew pub. Make sure that you hire accommodating staffs who can provide assistance to your clients.

If you want to establish a successful pub brew business, make sure that you establish a signature malt beverage that your pub brew business can be known of. Make sure that you also make your brew pub business establishment an entertaining place to visit so clients will keep coming back not just for the great tasting brewed drinks but for the great services as well.

Things You'll Need

Wine Crates
A Couple of Wine Barrels
Wine Racks
Creative Eye
And More

Instructions

There is bound to be a bar that has closed in your area. Dive bars started failing before the economy imploded; find an abandoned commercial space with bar amenities that will save you big dollars. Also, there will be an existing liquor license granted for the premises and that is huge.
The space you are looking for: It should be long and somewhat narrow, a rectangular shape and less than 1,000 square feet. It should have men's and women's restrooms. Most importantly, it should have a built-in bar. You are going to save tens of thousands in renovation costs if you find this formula.
You can tear out the back bar and set it up as you need to for the purposes of wine purveying, that's an easy project. You can add and subtract refer units as necessary. Be sure to purchase all refrigeration units used at a restaurant wholesaler. Believe me, there is going to be plenty of great used equipment for sale over the next year.
Don't get cute and think about creating a food prep area and buying more equipment. You can serve a cheese platter, crackers, grapes and olives from behind the bar. People will be coming to socialize, enjoy a good glass and peruse the opposite sex. Stay focused.
Dealing with the overall decor: Clean up the shell of the space and get rid of all junky beer bar related furnishings. If there is a carpet, it must go. Paint the walls a cream white. Stain the concrete floors, if you have concrete floors. Add a row of wine racks directly behind the bar stools for the regular retail wine selection. Add a couple of round tables in the rear with chairs. Stage a couple of old wine barrels and display empty bottles of your best wines along with candles.
Last consideration: The lighting has to be nice. Pick some beautiful pendants for over the bar and make sure the lighting plan hits the tables but not everywhere else. Make the mood. All lights must be on dimmers.
Keep track of expenses. Try to keep within your projected budget to stay on track with your business plan. One strategy to do this is to keep your pour costs in check. Pour costs are the percentage of alcohol you pour in order to make a profit. The figure is obtained through dividing the expense of depleted inventory by the gross sales generated from the inventory over a set amount of time, such as monthly. A good goal to aim for is below 20 percent pour costs. So, if your pour costs are 17 percent, that means it costs you 17 cents in alcohol for every $1 you earn. Calculate beer and wine pour costs separately, since the cost of each can vary significantly.
Ensure your staff isn't costing you money through theft. Some bartenders or servers might not consider it stealing to have free drinks, but that takes money out of your profit just as surely as it would if they took cash from your register. Another form of theft that can be common is when staff give away drinks, again reducing your bottom line. Some strategies to reduce employee theft are to reconcile the tills yourself, put out tip jars, use a perpetual inventory system that gives real-time results whenever you need them, use "precision pour" systems to regulate the amount of liquor dispensed per serving and require owner/manager approval for every complimentary drink.
Attract and keep customers by knowing your demographic. You decided on your niche before opening, so, for example, if you started with the goal of being a brewpub that appeals to customers with a discerning taste for micro-brews, continue to maintain your core inventory even as you broaden your product lists. Or, if your beer and wine bar is a combination tasting area and retail store where customers can buy wine to take with them, it might not make sense to add a dance floor, particularly if you have a small retail space. Be flexible, though. If the business you had in mind isn't flourishing, perhaps you've misjudged the demographic. For example, opening an upscale wine bar serving rare vintages in an area with a heavy college population might not make sense. Don't be afraid to change things to attract the right customers, as long as you aren't doing something new every week or changing just for the sake of change.

Tips & Warnings:

These are some broad concepts that can literally save you tens of thousands of dollars and time. Molding an existing space to your needs and polishing it just so can have an amazing effect.
Getting a liquor license is not an easy task in any city and can be quite costly. Taking one over is a gift.
Hire an interior designer, not an architect, to help you put it all together.
Be sure to visit the building department with your plans for approval and get a permit. Make friends with the Health Department.

Reference

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Easy Tips and Ideas to Start Business

Although anyone can start a business, many people fail because of a bad product or improper research. If you want to start your own business, you can improve your chances for success before you even begin. In order to make your business successful, start strong and make sure that your idea will hold out for the long haul.

Have a Good Product

Ensure that you plan to sell something useful. Although you may think that your product is important or special, that doesn't mean the general public will agree. Ask friends, family and strangers what they think of your product. If they don't seem that interested, ask them why. With their suggestions, you can either improve the product or scrap the idea completely. According to Brad Sugars of Entrepreneur magazine, most small businesses fail because they sold a product that didn't have an adequate market. This also applies to small businesses that provide a service. A lawn-care business might be useful for part of the year in a northern state, but it is in-demand year-round in the south. Consider whether people will actually want to use your service and get constructive advice from those not afraid to give their opinion.

Research Local Businesses

Research local companies before starting up your own business. This will not only give you an idea of the amount of competition you will have, but it will also help you price your product or service. If you're looking to start a wedding photography business, you may find during your research that the market is over-saturated in your area. If not over-saturated, you should contact each business and ask them for a price list. Alter your prices so you can stay competitive with the competition in town. Researching similar local businesses will also help you decide where to locate your business location. Try not to start up a store or office close to another business of your type. If your small business is located away from similar business types, this will cause locals to choose you over businesses that are farther away from where they live.

Get Professional Advice

You may know someone who has started their own successful business. Ask him for advice and listen to his stories of how he started his company. You may gain useful advice on the good and bad ways to start a business. Local entrepreneurs can also introduce you to local product providers or advertisers that you may not have met without their help. Accept any advice with open arms, especially if the advice is coming from someone successful in the area.

How to Calculate Business Start Up Costs

Starting a business in no easy endeavor. It takes a great deal of research, perseverance and hard work. While sweat equity will make your small business more successful, you will most likely need real capital to get the business started. Before you start raising capital and/or investing your own funds, the first thing you need to do is determine the total start-up costs.

Step 1

Determine your costs of sales. For most small businesses this means inventory, the cost of raw materials, manufacturing equipment, shipping, packaging, and warehousing. However, not all businesses sell products. In this case, the cost of sales is primarily the direct labor involved in making the sale. For example, to open a small shoe business entails purchasing enough inventory ($10,000) to stock the store.

Step 2

Determine professional fees. Planning your business structure, i.e., limited liability corporation or general partnership, means hiring an attorney. There may also be the need to pay an attorney for help with establishing trademarks, copyrights, and patents. In this scenario, that puts total professional fees at an estimated $20,000.

Step 3

Determine technology costs. Technology can greatly reduce the cost of labor for small business if used effectively. Most small businesses require computers, printers, cell phones, website development, Internet access, software applications, information security, data storage, and outsourced information technology (IT) consulting. If the cost of technology is $10,000 to start, add an additional $5,000 a year for maintenance (hint: maintenance is not included in start-up costs).

Step 4

Determine administrative costs. This varies with business types and may include items such as business insurance, office supplies, product packaging, parking, rent, express shipping, desks, chairs, fax machines, phones, or anything else necessary to operate the business daily. A good estimate for start-up administrative costs would be $5,000 for the first six months.

Step 5

Determine initial sales and marketing costs. Now that you have your product, you need to let folks know about it. Sales and marketing costs generally include marketing materials for presentations, printing stationery, business cards, advertising, trade show events, and public relations. These initial sales and marketing costs can add up to $3,000.

Step 6

Determine the wages and benefits needed to secure a staff. This includes employee salaries, benefits, workers compensation, and payroll taxes. Let's put the cost of wages and benefits estimated at $20,000 for the first three months of business.

Step 7

Add all costs associated with starting the business for a total. Be sure to only include business start-up costs that will be incurred in the first three to six months of operations. For this example, the calculation is: $10,000 + $20,000 + $10,000 + $5,000 + $3,000 + $20,000 = $68,000.

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Sunday, November 30, 2014