Entertainment For Lively Minds
I Lived 'The Dream'
Posted by jimmyshoes01 on 16 September 2011 - 10:37pm.
In the mid noughties (remember them?) I joint owned a bar. My mate and I spent eight months renovating it with just the help of my mate's dad. We ripped the old bar completely out and redecorated to our own specifications.
We ripped out the old electrics and rewired. We put up false ceilings. We built the bar, literally from the wooden floor up. It took nine months and money disappeared into loans and credit cards as we realised the dream we had been discussing over endless drink and cigarettes for the previous three years.
Finally, on New Years Eve 2006 we opened to a few punters and a sense of anticlimax.
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We weren't perturbed though,
We weren't perturbed though, the punters would have been planning their night for months, we just picked up the strays and the turned away and had a thrilling first night as a business even if the tonne of ice mainly melted away and the till rang as often as Chris Langham's agent's phone.
We had a plan you see and it was fool proof. Having done a lot of intentional and non-intentional market research we knew what bars and pubs lacked above all else in London was customer service and the welcome. Every customer was going to be treated as a very special guest in our home.
From day one the rules were universal and simple. When acustomer came in they were welcomed with a big smile and hello; once the order was taken they were asked to find a seat and the drinks would be brought to them; if they wanted something within reason and we didn't stock it, we would try our utmost to get it with a dash to the local shop or to a neighbouring pub. While the kitchen was being built, they could bring in takeaway food which we would plate up and provide cutlery and condiments.
In short, they would know that we were her only because of them and not the other way around.
They came from miles around and while we could not pick up a day trade due to the lack of a kitchen the weekend evenings were packed.
The one other key factor of the success of the bar was the music which, I am proud to say was all down to me. Using a Macbook and my extensive CD collection all crammed on an external hard drive we built plenty of playlists for all occasions with the motto - to educate and entertain. I made playlists for Monday nights, Saturday nights, private parties and so on. On top of this we incorporated the essence of our creed and would download any requests we didn't have direct from itunes whcih went down a storm. What's 79p for another £20 round of drinks?
However, as with all stories, life behind the looking glass was not so rosy. Ask most of my friends what they would love to do as a job within reasonable means and 75% would say 'own a bar'. As did I until I actually did.
Those Saturday nights when it was heaving with good people and the music was rocking and the drinks were flowing and the till was being regularly emptied into the safe were incredible. This represented about 5% of reality. The rest was a struggle: drug problems, arguments, talking to lonely old men on quiet weekdays, endless cleaning, juggling finances while not dropping on quality, gangsters and hooligans, saving a two year old marriage, four o clock morning finishes, endless taxes and charges appearing.
The dream ended after a year and a half of my partner partying like Keith Richards without having the actual funds and me becoming more disillusioned. I went off to a 9-5 that I still dislike but it gives me freedom. A freedom that was always out of my grasp even though through stricter discipline was always in sight.
I was prepared to work 365 days a year for 5 years to make it a success and then open a string of bars, my partner just needed to be Mr Popular there and then, the bigger picture escaped him completely.
I don't regret it at all, I just often think of what could have been.
The reason for the stumble down memory lane is that I have just resuscitated a once dead iPod that hasn't been heard since those days and those playlists are bringing a massive smile to my face and stiff hairs upon the back of my neck once more.
A sample of a Saturday playlist:
Ray Charles - Hallelujah I Love Her So
Charlie Whitehead - I Found Myself Something To Sing About
Tim Buckley - Mexicali Voodoo
The Radiants - Hold On
N.E.R.D - Things Are Getting Better
Marlena Shaw - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
The Smiths - Barbarism Begins At Home
The Ripple - I Don't Know What It Is (But It Sho' Is Funky)
? & The Mysterions - 96 Tears
The Clash - Train In Vain
Jackie Ross - Take Me For A Little While
Billie Holiday - The Way You Look Tonight (!)
The Small Faces - Eddie's Dreaming
Gorillaz - DARE
Jackson Browne - Doctor My Eyes
Theme From Man In a Suitcase
D-Influence - Good Lover
Orbital - Funny Break
Buzzcocks - Everybody's Happy Nowadays
Emmanual Jal - Gua
Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I do)
The Faces - You Can Make Me Sing Dance Or Do Anything
Jenny Lewis - Handle With Care
The Dramatics - Get Up and Get Down
Beastie Boys - Get It Together
The Byrds - My Back Pages
Dean Martin - Little Ol' Wine Drinker Me
Steely Dan - Peg
Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
The Jungle Brothers - Because I Got It Like That
Grandaddy - AM180
Dave & Ansel Collins - Monkey Spanner
Camper Van Beethoven - Take The Skinheads Bowling
Roots Manuva - Witness (1 Hope)
and so on. I have never been in a bar like ours before or since and that is something I definitely do miss.
I spent my life looking for a Bar Partner like you
And you went and did it with a dude who couldn't see a bigger picture! At least you did it though!
Great post, jimmy
God, I love that Faces track.
Just for the music alone
that's a bar I wish I'd (been) drunk in.
Great post Jimmy
At least you did it. You only regret the things you didn't do, etc.
You know what they say ....
How do you make a hundred thousand quid? Spend two hundred thousand opening a bar ...
Bars are like yachts. Or swimming pools. Much better to have a mate with one.
great post
where was it?
It was
near Tower Bridge. Great location in essence but while the apartments cost up to a million quid opposite us, out of our fire exit was a ne'er do well estate that produced the element that contributed to the downfall.
We had no intention of being exclusive and tried to make sure the door was open to everyone. It worked for a while but then the trouble started and the regulars started becoming less regular as the atmosphere changed.
Crims
How did you deal with the gangsters? I've seen a bar adopted by some scary types, and the downward momentum was swift. The owners seemed almost to welcome it, but I don't know what they could have done if they didn't. (It's been burnt out for the last few months, with no sign of reopening.)
Your place sounds great, by the way.
The Police
with this problem,Kevin.were no help at all. They just give you grief about you seving them and think you are involved in their activities.
The only solution i found that worked was paying to scarier ones to offer protection (see post below).Horrible I Know but effective but it means your time in that bar is near its end...This was in the late 80s early 90s maybe times have changed.
my mate Phil
used to run nightclubs, and apparently it does help if you are a copper's son. Not much help to most I suppose. Phil is a gentle guy - but a gentle, built, 6 foot 2 guy with a crew cut who looks like he would be tasty in a fight. That probably helps too.
It may have been your dream, and I am really grateful people like you do it. But to me it looks like incredibly hard work, for really long hours, endless grief, and bugger all money. I'm happy to be this side of the bar.
That's horrible
I hoped there was a way that everyone but me could figure out.
Kevin
right at the start we became friends with them - keep your enemies closer, etc.
It worked on the whole but the ringleaders weren't prepared to reign in the scallies.
It says a lot about the control we had over the bar that the only big fight we had was after a year and the police drove past the bar three times before finding us. But it was the fight to end all fights. About fifty people going Wild West. Couldn't split it up so I was just wading into the middle picking glasses and bottles out of people's hands on the backswing. They couldn't even fight like men.
Just cowardly mob mentality.
All down to cocaine. Nasty fucking drug.
"Drug problems,Gangsters and hooligans"
Had a couple of very popular bars in Brighton and got sick of dealing with the 3 groups above.The minute anywhere becomes popular it attracts these morons.
We had a 1 o'clock license and they really do come out after 11pm.
We should get together and compare war stories,Jimmy.
When it was good it was fantastic and 95% of the punters were no problem but it only takes one.
Ran a club in Southampton and lived a couple of streets away but had to get a taxi home and get the taxi to take a different route every Saturday night because people who were barred tried to follow me home.More for the girlfriend's safety than my own but it had to be done.
Fantastic playlist
Great post Jimmy.
Sorry to hear it didn't work out, but good on you for giving it a go. Playlist sounds ace.
What is the % of problems in this country.......
.....being down somewhere en route to 'drugs'?
I'm going for 98%.
Could be less, someone on this site might even think it is more.