i want to open a bar..... with friends as partners....

[Wino]

I suggest you look in to more details. For example, a liquor license alone is a fairly large expense, and can take more than a year to get. In Texas, where the beauracy is fairly small, it can take more than a year. I can imagine 5 year waits in some northeastern venues.

After that are the rules and laws on bottles. Do you know that if a tax label is damaged, even if it is still legible, the liquor must be disposed of and if you're found to have such on your shelf, it will be immediately disposed of and you'll be fined per violation?

Don't forget liability for over-serving folks who get into wrecks or fall down on the sidewalk. You can be sued, even if you're not at fault. You'll need insurance for that. As an establishment catering to the public, these premiums and fees alone will likely exceed the amount you have postulated of $1000 per month.

I could go on, as I've considered a similar pastime when I retire, but I think I've said enough. You need to do some research. Talk to bar owners about their costs and problems. See what you're actually up against. I don't think you've thought this out, and I'm certain you have not done enough research.

[amarowsky]

I have family that owns bars. And I use to bartend as well and serve take and cook before I got my current job. Already checked liabilities insurance on the size bar I'm looking at is 500 monthly roughly. Cheapest transferable liquor license I've seen near me is 9000 bucks. And yes it is a year wait for any liquor license here, but while waiting on it if you put your deposit down you get an intent to sell liquor permit until the license is totally obtained.

[disneysteve]

I'm trying to approach the idea with the following, these people are at my house drinking and socializing at least 4 days a week per person. And usually they bring a friend or two that I usually know and am friends with and occasionally someone I don't know. As an owner of a frat style house, you can either call it fortune or misfortune that I have an insane amount of friends. Although some may be disrespectful 85% are. I figure if I could (with the help of my other close friends/possible partners) pool a small amount of money from each of us (instead of a lot for one) and deflect this plentiful inflow of friends and friends of friends into an affordable and accommodating bar that still represents my own personal charisma and the supplemented friends of my partners, possibly have a quite successful bar.

Or worst case (which would still be FUN!) have a building close to home that all of our friends can go to drink and live life joking and having fun with a open door policy for strangers or others to supplement our cost.

This helps tremendously with my advice. First off, I think the fact that you and your friends all spend at least 4 days/week hanging and out drinking is a problem in itself. I'd suggest finding something more constructive (and healthier) to do with your free time. You're not a college kid anymore. You're 25 years old.

That said, when all of these people come over and drink, who pays for that? Do they all chip in? Do they all bring their own to share? Do you provide the drinks? Converting a "frat style house" to a paying business might be a pipe dream. Plus, if they tend to bring along friends of friends, do they usually pay their way or just drink what others have provided? Would those people come instead to a bar where they had to pay for every drink? And how will you stop your friend-partners from pouring for their friends and not charging them, or at least not charging full price?

I should have been more informative on this. Of the friends (4 to 5) that have been in the dialogue of opening a bar together, naturally different people have different amounts saved. Only me and another have over 20k saved, a few of the others have no real significant financial obligations but we all earn steady and accommodating incomes. And all have good-excellent credit. They all show equal enthusiasm. But Should I propose something like "if you really want in you have to have $1000 to deposit in the business account within X period of time (few months, weeks whatever). Then I suggested that we open an account that can only be accessed by all of us, and force all partners to contribute somewhere around $100-300 monthly to build up the businesses savings. We would have to make agreements on what to do if someone had to leave. we all decided that we could not make it work, or if someone defaulted on the savings agreement. In which case if it didn't work we would simply split it up even between all that contributed, so it just served as an additional savings for all of us.

If you proceed with this, you definitely need to get a buy-in from everyone and not in a few weeks or months but upfront before any work happens to start this business. You also need a well written business plan and you need an attorney to draw up the partnership agreement detailing who is responsible for what, how much each person is to contribute and when, what happens if someone doesn't meet their obligations, what happens if someone wants to get out of the deal, etc. And the group collectively needs to fund the legal fees, license fee, and any and all other expenses incurred to get the business up and running.

Personally, I think you are looking to create a nightmare for yourself.

[amarowsky]

That said, when all of these people come over and drink, who pays for that? Do they all chip in? Do they all bring their own to share? Do you provide the drinks? Converting a "frat style house" to a paying business might be a pipe dream. Plus, if they tend to bring along friends of friends, do they usually pay their way or just drink what others have provided? Would those people come instead to a bar where they had to pay for every drink? And how will you stop your friend-partners from pouring for their friends and not charging them, or at least not charging full
price?

If it helps clarify at all we spend a LOT of time at bars too. (i know that is adversarial to your health advice still) And yes it is the norm that they bring their own booze and stuff. Were all pretty secure in our incomes.

Personally, I think you are looking to create a nightmare for yourself.

I do appreciate the feedback though opinions, facts, and comments. I was certain this idea would not be well received by the forum. And should we choose to go any further with this idea/pipe dream (and it is) I'll keep you guys posted on the play by play.



Kinda of a fun fact from my brother, he's a Gerontologist @ wayne state university, and sent me a link that showed studies that people who drink alcohol in Moderate to heavy quantities tend to have longer life spans than those who don't drink at all. To be governed accordingly.

[reedda]

Before I start, I want to say I am not at all against someone opening a bar/restaurant. I hope to do it myself someday.

That said...

I've never seen a bar partnership work out well, especially between friends. They are rarely friends in the end, and there's always an end. (Actually, now that I think about it, I haven't seen many partnerships in any business work out very well...but bars are harder because of reasons below).

I'm worried that you and your friends are opening this bar so you'll have your own personal bar at which to drink for free. That's pretty dangerous financially. It's hard enough for a sole bar owner to insist that his/her friends and acquaintances pay for their own drinks when they come in. Well, and they have an easier time insisting than bartenders do since the owner presumably knows the costs and financial state of the business.

It's also hard enough for a sole bar owner to not see his/her own bar as a free drinking establishment. I've worked for a few that drank away their profits pretty quickly and lost the bar. The last one lost the bar in about 3 months. Now, it wasn't just the "free alcohol", it was also that these owners were frequently inebriated and couldn't run or control the business or their employees.

One more warning: a bar owner also finds a lot of NEW FRIENDS! But these people might not really be friends. They want to be friends with the bar owner so they can get free drinks or other perks. And couples beware. In all but one case, the bar owners I know have had or are having affairs. I mention this because what one owner does will affect the business and hence, all other owners.

All that being said, if you move forward, make sure you have a lawyer involved and make sure all business arrangements are in writing. Lay out exactly who is investing how much to start, how much each gets in profit, what happens if one of the partners backs out later, what happens if one partner buys out another, what happens if one partner invests more later, etc.

Before going in, you all should sit down and set the boundaries. It is inevitable that one of you at least one time will bring in a large party and buy drinks all around. How should this be handled? I think it should come out of that person's profits, but that's just me. I think it's also inevitable that at least one of you will drink more on a daily/weekly basis than the others. If you say up front "owners drink free, YAY!", that will definitely cause a problem later with another owner.

You'll have to work out who is expected to work when, and which owners have which responsibilities. Will you have other employees, or just the owners will work? If other employees, one owner should be responsible for managing employees. Nothing is worse than having 5 bosses telling you different things.

How will you resolve conflicts between you? Like if one owner wants dart teams on Tuesdays and the other wants Texas Hold 'em, and you can't have both?

The list goes on and on... Document and agree on as much as possible up front, legalize it if you can, make sure everyone has an exit plan and knows what will happen if the plan isn't followed.

Good luck...it's all fun and games until friends decide to open a bar together Personally, I plan on owning my own and hopefully finding two excellent managers...