The Law of Unintended Consequences states that the actions of people always have effects that are unanticipated or unintended. We have experienced this fascinating phenomenon first-hand launching the cafe.
UC#1:
My vision for the room always included lots of funky and comfortable living room style conversation areas, because we wanted to encourage guests to interact with each other. We also wanted it to feel you are hanging out in your best friends living room. I think we succeeded, and our visitors love them, but there are definitely some downsides. For one, we are limiting the number of people we can fit in the bar on a busy night. Once the living rooms fill up, that’s it – it’s not like a typical bar with lots of standing room where you can just keep packing people in. We do have standing room around the bar, but from a purely numbers-based perspective, we would be better off switching out the living rooms for high top tables and open space.
UC#2:
For another, the seating areas sometimes work too well. We want people to interact with each other, but when we have a “listening room” style show, we expect guests to limit conversation and focus on the performance – which has proved to be challenging to actually accomplish, due in part to the seating situation.
Speaking of “listening room” style shows –
UC#3:
Our whole business model is built on the idea that music can be an almost spiritual experience when your audience is quiet and paying rapt attention. We’ve experienced some truly breathtaking, incredible moments in the few months we’ve been open. The unintended side effect is guests being reluctant to go up to the bar once the show begins. As you can guess, this has not had a positive effect on our sales.
UC#4:
We made the decision to be a combination of a coffee house and a bar because we wanted to encourage daytime business that didn’t involve alcohol, plus nobody in Syracuse was doing it yet. One of the coffee products we push is a pour over, which in our humble opinion, is the very best way to brew and enjoy coffee. The downside is that it’s a multi-step process and takes several minutes. We’ve learned the hard way that nothing puts our bartenders in the weeds on a busy night like a few pour over orders. We can easily crank out several cocktail orders in the time it takes to complete a single pour over, and the profit margin is certainly higher on alcohol. The same is true of a latte, cappuccino or mocha.
UC#5:
We wanted to allow music fans of all ages to enjoy live music at 443, so initially, we allowed children in the bar, even in the evening during shows. We did not anticipate that it would make our adult guests uncomfortable, or that visitors would leave their children unattended on a busy night. This UC resulted in a change in policy, which I wrote about in more detail HERE.
UC#6:
As two 50-ish adults, we never wanted to operate a venue that stayed open until 2am. We felt that many of our customers would appreciate the opportunity to attend shows early and still get to bed at a decent hour. That has proved to be true, but limited hours also limits the amount of time we have to meet our sales goals.
DUH, I know.
UC#7:
We are a live music venue offering music 3-5 nights per week. Some of our shows are free, some have a small cover charge and some ticketed. But we are also a coffee house and bar with customers who stop in for a cup of coffee or a cocktail. We can’t allow guests to stay for a ticketed show without paying, but I have to admit it’s a bit uncomfortable to have to clear the room of happy customers who are relaxing in the living rooms and enjoying a beverage or snack.
It’s interesting how doing things “our” way produced such a slew of unanticipated new issues, isn’t it? But, everything is “figureoutable” and we’re not planning to abandon our vision for 443. Our goal has never been to do what everyone else in town is doing, though obviously, we need to overcome these financial speedbumps we’ve created for our ourselves. We are changing and adapting to accommodate these new plot twists and I’m confident we will end up with a better business in the end.
PS –
Our biggest UC, using the phrase “Listening Room” in our name and getting slapped with a cease and desist (you can read about that HERE), has resulted in a truly heartwarming outpouring of community support. We are working hard to come up with a new name and hope to announce it soon. Whatever we settle on, our vision of creating a unique and intimate listening-style music venue will remain exactly the same.
See you soon!
