Post #793732 by Prikli Pear on Tue, Mar 12, 2019 8:13 AM

On 2019-03-11 11:27, tikiskip wrote:
Tiki nutz won't be regulars at your bar if you are charging high prices at least not in Columbus I can tell you that.
The Grass Skirt has three dollar beers and I think that is what saves them.

I listen to The Speakeasy and Bartender At Large podcasts, and a regular topic that comes up is "know your neighborhood." A sure way to fail is lock onto a bar concept, and not adjust it to the space/neighborhood. One guy was opening a craft cocktail bar in some city (can't recall which). They were a day or two away from their "soft opening" and some construction workers wandered in around lunch.

"You guys open?" they asked.

The owner thought, well, I've got 99 percent of everything in place, so he said "Sure. What'll you have?"

"Coors.""Ah, sorry guys. We're still waiting on some shipments. Come back tomorrow and we'll take care of you."

The owner went out and bought several cases of Coors for the next day. The workers came back, and told their friends. A year later, the bar does brisk business with the lunch crowd. The thing is, the owner hadn't planned to open before 4 p.m., or offer beer. Because he was able to adjust his expectations, his bar's now breaking even before the craft cocktail crowd--his original target audience--arrives in the evening.

The guys trying to launch the Quiet Village tiki bar in Austin have suffered their share of heartbreak with deals on space falling through. Some folks around, ever impatient, argue for them to just take any space that becomes available, regardless of size or location. They know better. Austin will support a tiki bar in general, but not all locations will. They know where it will work and where it won't, and are resisting the temptation of "Go fever." In the interim, several groups have announced opening dates for new tiki bars--dates that have come and gone without any tiki to speak of.