We’re back in the swing of things after our end-of-summer-working-our-ass-off “vacation”, and I finally had a chance to sit down and recap what we were up to during the last 2 weeks of August.
I knew going into our 13-day State Fair hiatus that my To-Do list would take a cleaning crew, an accountant, a personal assistant and team of 20 minions to actually complete, but here’s how it all shook out.
NAME CHANGE
It’s happening…
I filed for a DBA under our existing LLC with the new name -The 443 Social Club & Lounge, or just The 443 for short. We figured it was an easy transition and a lot of people already refer to us at “The 443” anyway.
A huge chunk of my first week was spent updating the graphics for our events to include our new name. Each ticketed event has 6 different sized images associated with it – an EventBrite header, a Facebook event image, a Facebook cover image, a website banner, a physical poster and printed tickets. It was a massive project, so I was glued to my laptop for several hours every day of our break, though I did take advantage of the gorgeous weather and worked outside on the patio whenever I could.
I was massively stressed out about moving our website to our new domain, but thankfully I managed to get it done without invoking the dreaded White Screen of Death. I know how to clone a website and move it, but it’s tricky and I haven’t done it in a while, so it could have gone either way. It was a relief when I accomplished it with a minimal amount of frustrated cursing.
Once I got through that hurdle, I switched our Facebook page and Instagram accounts over to the new name as well.
I’m in the process of combing through our website to update the language and we still have to design the physical signs for the building – hopefully, we’ll have everything completely buttoned up in the next couple of months.
I’ve had several attorneys tell me that the phrase “Listening Room” is too generic and therefore not protectable, and the fact that the Nashville location did not enforce their trademark for the first 5 years they had it does not help their cause. That’s probably true, but it’s not something I’m interested in spending one bit of time, money or mental energy on. I need to dedicate every resource I have to making this business work.
I feel terrible for the other “Listening Rooms” who have been developing their brand for years and are now facing the impossible choice of risking the brand they’ve developed or risk financial ruin by fighting a bigger company with much deeper pockets.
I’ve become friendly with a “Listening Room” owner in another state and while he’s sure a name change will hurt his 4-year-old business, he is not in a position to get into an expensive legal battle. The Listening Room in Nashville has hired a high powered law firm in his town, so it appears they are planning to file if he does not begin the transition.
It’s a shame… the world needs more “Listening Rooms” – not less. These venues are small rooms and they provide a much-needed home for live, original music in a world where a bar with big-screen TVs and no live music is a far more profitable business model.
BOOKING
My goal was to finish booking our 2019 calendar during our break. I didn’t quite get there but made great progress. We’ve got some fantastic shows coming your way over the next few months and I’m working on filling the last few open dates.
ACOUSTICS
In his never-ending quest for a perfect sounding room, our Sound Tech Extraordinaire Dave Kane dismantled the stage during our break.
He was getting some vibration that he wasn’t crazy about, so he pulled the top off, stuffed the stage with insulation and screwed it back down more securely.
I planned on adding some fabric and/or texture to our back wall to help with sound absorption, but I ran out of time. We added tablecloths to the tables in the back and stapled carpet scraps under the tabletops a few months ago, but the area could still use some help – it still has a lot of hard surfaces. I’m hoping to add some curtains or a textured wall hanging to the back wall sometime in the next couple of months.
WALK-IN COOLER PROJECT
Our building has been home to a number of bars over the years, so it had a liquor room and decrepit, non-functioning walk-in cooler in the basement. Unfortunately, both were being used for storage by our landlord when we moved in. We eventually negotiated the use of the walk-in, but by that time we were deep in the 2019 Summer Slump and the funds to get it in working order just weren’t there.
We’ve been limping along with a residential refrigerator and an upright freezer, but not having reasonable refrigeration was impacting nearly every part of our business. I wasn’t able to buy anything in bulk, our back up beer bottles, kegs and white wine weren’t cold and I had to shop nearly every day. It was expensive and exhausting.
Luckily for us, my father in law (one of the owners of the building) agreed to fund the project, which is fantastic since it’s not something we can take with us if we ever move the business. Pre-fab walk-ins start at several thousand dollars, but we went the DIY route with the guidance of our awesome friend Brian, who is a contractor and former bar owner.
The old walk-in was a cement block structure that was lined with raggedy insulation panels and an old compressor that was beyond repair. Brian and Jimmy redid the insulation panels, ripped out the compressor and replaced it with an air conditioner and a CoolBot, which is a gadget that keeps the AC unit from cycling off. It’s pretty nifty, and Jimmy can even monitor the temperature from an app on his phone to make sure it’s holding at a frosty 38 degrees.
It ended up not being as difficult or expensive as we thought…how often does that happen?!?
Jimmy even managed to score a Craigslist bargain for the metal shelving – 5 sections in exactly the size we needed, and in great shape too.
This is LIFE CHANGING.
SPREADSHEETS…SO MANY SPREADSHEETS
With our newfound ability to purchase in bulk plus a little free time to compare prices, I started really digging into how I’m buying everything. I knew my wholesale food purveyor was not the cheapest on everything, but I just hadn’t had time to investigate other options.
I made a chart comparing prices on our inventory from our wholesale purveyor, Costco, Wegmans, BJs and other sources like Amazon and Webstaurant.com, and the results were surprising.
Costco turned out to be the cheapest option (by a lot) for baking supplies, so we’re heading back next week to get a membership. Webstaurant.com and Amazon are better choices for dry goods and similar supplies, and surprisingly Wegmans was the cheapest (also by a lot) on a few items. We are still a pretty small operation, so we need things in bigger quantities than your average household, but not the quantity a restaurant with a full kitchen would require.
Making smarter buying choices improves our bottom line immediately, and having this information at my fingertips will allow me to stock up on a good deal when it comes along.
ARRIVEDERCI, RANCILLIO
As I mentioned in my Seven Month Progress Report, we’ve been wrestling with the question of what to do with our gorgeous Italian espresso machine, which was a gift from our friends at Laci’s Tapas Bar.
The machine is stunning and we built the back bar around it, but our vision of being a groovy, multi-roaster coffee house has just not gotten off the ground.
If money was no object and space wasn’t at such a premium, I suspect we could develop this part of the business given enough time. But in our current reality, we ARE selling booze, we ARE selling food and we are NOT selling many espresso-based drinks. Our bar was difficult to work on a busy night because we are trying to serve too many functions in a tiny area and there was not one bit of surface area to set anything down.
The main issues were needing a spot to park food when we’re working on a big order and handling GrubHub take out orders, plus we wanted to get more of our liquor bottles down to a height our bartenders could reach – hauling the step ladder out constantly was cumbersome.
While we’ve been discussing this possible project for a few months, it was the last thing we tackled during our break because we both had mixed feelings about it. We knew it was the right thing to do, but we were crushed that we couldn’t make the coffee house concept work.
We relocated the espresso machine and grinder to my house (in case we can work them back in down the road) and I cleared out the entire back bar to prep for some work on the shelves and a good cleaning.
The plan was to have our handyman add a couple more shelves on Sunday, clean, put the bar back together and have a light day on Labor Day. I really wanted to get some rest and head into the week fresh and ready to take on the world.
It did not work out that way.
Our handyman was not feeling well on Sunday, so he wasn’t able to come until Monday, and we were not able to put the bar back together until about 1pm on Monday afternoon.
This is what it looked like Monday morning:
It was a LONG day.
Our handyman extended the shelves and we moved our cash register over to the newly opened up work space. That opened up more accessible area on the bar side, so we were able to rearrange our wine and alcohol to make it more efficient. Having the walk-in cooler to store our back up white wine freed up a lot of space too.
Ally (one of our bartenders) spent about 12 hours on Labor Day helping me redesign the area, clean and put everything back together – I couldn’t have done it without her.
The coffee cups and lids moved into the space where the espresso grinder was, the flavor shots moved over and our pour-over station got a better location – it was hanging out on the corner of the bar and I was always worried the Chemex was going to get knocked over. Our GrubHub tablet lives there now too.
Getting the pour-over set up out of the corner freed up space for our toaster, which is allowing us to accommodate the requests we’ve gotten to serve bread or toast with our salads. Our Apple, Walnut & Bacon Spinach salad now comes with bacon honey buttered stretch bread toast and our Southwest Salad comes with chipotle lime buttered toast.
Having these two little surface areas opened up may not look like much to the casual observer, but it makes our bar about 100 times more efficient. I’m still a little sad about losing the espresso machine, but after experiencing our first week with the new set up, I have zero regrets.
DISPLAY CASES – SOLD!
Before we opened, we bought this beautiful pair of refrigerated display cases from a cafe that went out of business.
They were only a few years old and in great condition, but ended up being way too big for our room.
We were struggling to figure out where to store them since we eliminated the storage container on the side of the building to make way for our patio. We have almost no storage in our building, and each unit weighs over 250lbs, so we really didn’t have a place to stash them. We’ve been trying to sell them for a year but didn’t have any serious inquiries until Jimmy listed them on the Utica area Craigslist – and by some miracle, they were sold and picked up Tuesday morning right before we reopened. Wooooo-hooooo!
FOOD & BOOZE
With our break coinciding with the change of seasons, Ally and I created our new fall cocktail menu. You can check it out online HERE, along with our wine list that got a few tweaks.
This is one area where I didn’t accomplish nearly what I wanted to.
Sometimes you get lucky when you’re developing a menu item and get it right on the first try, and sometimes it takes a lot of trial and error. I had hoped to develop a bunch of new menu items, but I didn’t love my first few attempts and eventually had to put the project aside so I could tackle other more critical tasks.
I’m happy with the flavored butter I came up with for the toast that goes with our salads, but I’m still working on a new shareable appetizer board, a couple of salads, and a new gluten-free option. I’m going to try and figure that all out in the next few weeks.
So, our vacation wasn’t really a vacation. It was a lot of behind the scenes, un-sexy work that isn’t visible to the public but was absolutely necessary for the health of our business. When we opened back up I was ragged and completely exhausted from the non-stop projects, but I know it was worth the effort.
The work we did during our break was a quantum leap forward for our business, especially the walk-in cooler and the ripple effect it had on everything we do. We slashed our costs, eliminated a lot of waste, made our bar and food operation more efficient and cut down on the time I spend running around for supplies. It was insane that we made it work as long as we did, but I’m grateful every day for the set up we have now and the people who helped us get here.
We’re relieved the summer months have come to an end (I never thought I would say that!) and we’re all really looking forward to our first fall season. We have a lot of great things happening and we sincerely hope you’ll join us.
See you soon!
