The 443 – Version 2.0

Hey 443-ers…WE MISS YOU LIKE CRAZY!!! We hope you are all healthy and safe wherever you are right now. We can’t wait to see you all again.

We’ve been using our unexpected free time to work on some projects. We’re brainstorming summer cocktails, thinking about new menu items, adding to our touring artist “wish list”, finding new music, and exploring some ideas we’ve had on the table for the last few months. We want to come back bigger and better than ever.

Also, we’re taking naps. Lots and LOTS of naps. It’s GLORIOUS. 

We’ve decided to make some changes to our physical space. Here’s the inside scoop.

 

The 443 1.0

The focus of our vision for The 443 has always been live music. We wanted to create a home for original, acoustic live performances without the usual bar distractions, a place for true music lovers to experience the songs and stories and connect with artists in a meaningful way.

We knew it would be tricky for a room our size to support itself on live music alone, so our original incarnation included a multi-roaster coffee house, a lunch menu and a funky, comfortable space for afternoon meetings and happy hour. We were open 7 days a week and started our day at 8am on weekdays.

We have tweaked and adjusted our strategy almost constantly since then.

We thought a rotating selection of excellent beans not readily available would be appealing to Syracuse coffee lovers. We set up livingroom style seating to give our guests a comfortable place to hang out and enjoy a latte, hold a meeting or get some work done. We understood we weren’t going to have much walk-up business, but we’re very close to downtown and parking is free and easy right outside our door. We thought we might capture some folks who didn’t want to circle the block 3 times, then pay to park just to grab a coffee. We blanketed businesses in our immediate area with boxes of homemade cookies and cards good for a free coffee to no avail. After several months of a grinding schedule and almost no morning business, we cut our morning hours and started opening at 11am for lunch.

The 443 1.1

We got rid of the three bulky high top tables in the back of the bar and replaced them with a dozen regular height tables to create a more flexible space for lunch groups. We also worked on attracting business people for afternoon meetings.

 

 

We experimented with GrubHub lunch delivery, but that ended up being a waste of time. Seriously, don’t use them if you can help it – restaurants make almost no money on these orders.

We finally admitted defeat in the early fall. We cut day hours out entirely, retired our gorgeous espresso machine, and began opening at 4pm. It was an easier schedule, but at this point, we were starting to get panicky.

The 443 1.2

We knew how risky it was to depend on evening business alone to hit our numbers, especially since sales were still a roller coaster. We continued to work on marketing our events, developing an after-work happy hour crowd and convincing people to stick around after the shows. Aside from hosting touring artists, we always imagined we would be a home for local musicians performing their own originals, but we really struggled to capture much support for it. We experimented with hosting book club nights once or twice a month to encourage people to hang out on off nights, but they were problematic – we always had at least one group not show up or a 10 person reservation turn into 2 people, so it was tricky to staff and prep appropriately.

Finally, in late fall we started to see some real progress with our ticketed shows, including a nice string of sold-out performances. Hell yes!

The one downside to our ticketed shows is having to completely flip the room every time we have one. Our normal furniture set up has about 65 seats:

 

 

Our official capacity is 88, and obviously, for ticketed performances, we want to sell as many seats as possible. Right now we consider 85 to be a sellout. They are almost always “listening room” style shows, so conversational seating areas are not ideal – we’re trying to discourage chatter and seating should face the stage. When we have a ticketed show we have to turn all the couches around, remove the coffee tables, end tables, lamps and tchotchkes and bring in extra chairs. It’s a big project and it takes 2 people a couple of hours to complete. The next day, it all has to go back.

 

It isn’t any fun at all…if we’re being honest, it sucks pretty hard. It’s dozens of trips up and down the basement steps and out to the storage container on the side of the building. It’s especially tough during the winter when we’re doing it in the snow and when we have to flip the room back between a busy Saturday night and an early Sunday event.

By the end of 2019, we started really questioning why we were going through all this. What was the point anyway?

We were burning through a lot of labor, and we were putting the room back together to accommodate our other events. The problem is, the other events aren’t nearly as cost-effective as our ticketed shows and nobody is using the space at all during off time periods. We created a funky and unique atmosphere that nobody seems to want to hang out in unless there is actually a performance going on…our guests come in right before the shows begin and bolt out the door as soon as they are over. It’s pretty baffling, but at this point – it is what it is. The reality is, we have just 4 hours a night to make enough sales to cover our expenses.

Another issue we’re looking at is how people eat, drink and behave when they’re lounging in a comfy living room vs sitting at regular tables and chairs…let’s call it the Psychology of Seating.

It’s not unusual for our guests to get one drink and a sandwich when they arrive, then park themselves in a living room for the rest of the night drinking water…or maybe not ordering anything at all. At a recent show, we had a party of 6 refuse to order anything for the entire night. Yes, they purchased tickets – but we don’t keep that money. 80% of ticket sales go to the performer and if all goes well the other 20% covers our sound tech and the door person. For a local show with a $5 cover, 100% of it goes to the performer and sound tech. So, 6 people not ordering anything at a sold out show costs us $150-$200+ because guests who would have ordered food and drink got shut out.

We’ve even had a shocking number of people get upset when we tell them they can’t bring their own beverages into our establishment.

How is that even a thing?!?

As my father in law has said, “Maybe you’ve been making it TOO comfortable for them?”.

It’s frustrating, especially when someone comes in and then leaves because there isn’t anywhere to sit.

On the other hand, when we have people standing for a show, there is a different energy in the room. People move around more and we tend to do better at the bar. For the last few months before the closure, we experimented with removing the barstools to make it easier for people to get a drink and to make sure we have a standing area that doesn’t obstruct the view of our seated guests.

Tables are a completely different story. Guests often ask if it’s okay to sit at our tables in the back if they are just drinking and not ordering food (it is). There is an unspoken understanding that if you’re occupying a table at a bar or restaurant that you’re expected to make a purchase. Nobody questions it.

The bulky couches and upholstered chairs – in any configuration – aren’t the best use of our limited real estate anyway…they look cool, but basic wooden chairs take up far less space, and you don’t have the issue of some pieces being higher than others and limiting sight lines.

Right now we are 15 months into being open and ticketed performances are the only component of our original business model consistently working. We tried mightily to be a funky coffee house, a cool lunch joint, a comfy place for meetings and a groovy happy hour hang and we failed. Our local shows with a cover charge are financially viable about 30% of the time. It was a surprise to us, but somehow it’s far easier to sell $20-$25 tickets in Syracuse than to get people to pay a $5 cover charge.

I think if we were located in a bigger city (or had the funding to stick it out in an empty room for a few years), The 443 Version 1.0 would have worked. I truly believe that. I can’t count how many times someone came in for the first time, looked around wide-eyed, and said, “This place is AMAZING. I feel like I’m in New York! (or San Francisco/Austin/Paris) If you were in any other city you would be packed day and night!”.

We’re thrilled the ticketed shows are doing so well, but with a max capacity of 88 people and only a handful of these shows a month, the business is not viable.

It’s a pretty surreal situation because several times a week someone congratulates us on our “success”. If you only see us once or twice a month at a sold-out show, it looks freaking awesome. It looks like it works. A home run. What you’re not seeing is the people who peer in the door during happy hour and leave because there are only 3 people at the bar or me turning the lights off at 10:30pm because the entire room vaporized after the show. You don’t see us juggling bills around or my husband working overtime every week because I left a $50,000+ year job to start this business…and a year later we’re still not making enough to pay me minimum wage. You’re not seeing us trying to figure out if this is even possible.

It probably isn’t. But we’re going to try like hell to reinvent ourselves again and make it work.

Our goals for this business were never extravagant. We knew it would be a lot of work and sacrifice, and we knew it wasn’t a business with the potential to make a ton of money. We need The 443 to support itself and pay me a modest salary…that’s it. We’re doing something we love and we’re doing something that’s good for our musical community. That’s valuable and important.

 

The 443 2.0

We had already begun trying to bump up the number of ticketed shows we’re offering (April would have been HUGE!), but of course the COVID-19 crisis threw a big germy wrench in that plan. We’re scrambling to reschedule everyone without a clear idea of when we’ll even be able to open the doors. Since we’re likely to be closed for at least another month, Jimmy and I have been having a lot of conversation about what we can do when we reopen to improve our situation. How can we be better, improving our guest experience and at the same time increase sales?

We might as well use the time constructively, right?

When the fire marshal did our original inspection to calculate capacity, he told us if we cleared out all the seating we would land at around 300 people. We’re not interested in anything that drastic, but clearly something has to give if we want a chance to keep the doors open. We’ve had a waiting list for all our recent shows and absolutely could have sold more tickets if we had the room. The other problem occurs when we have a busy local show and there isn’t even anywhere to stand – so we lose people who might have stayed for a few drinks.

 

“A pivot is a change in strategy without a change in vision”

Eric Ries, The Lean Startup

 

 

Our plan is to put the living room furniture in storage and convert those areas to cabaret-style seating – small tables with chairs on one side facing the stage. They can easily be pushed together for larger groups and it eliminates wrangling TV tray tables for food and drink during a show. The back of the room that currently houses tables and chairs would be cleared out except for a few high top cocktail tables. It will become standing room only, and the bar would be standing room for most events as well. If our calculations are correct, we should be able to increase our cap to 110-120 people.

We’ve been struggling with the decision because our groovy vintage living rooms are a big part of our identity… they are what makes us different from every other place in town. I love our room exactly as it is, and this is a scary change. But, the current set up just doesn’t work for the way people use our space. From a purely objective standpoint, the new arrangement is a better set up for every type of event we currently offer.

The time has come for us to embrace the idea that we are first and foremost a live music venue, one that happens to have a bar in it. We have to accept that our community isn’t interested in hanging out at our place unless we have something compelling happening on our stage. We aren’t a coffee shop, a lunch joint, a happy hour destination or even a bar where people might stop in randomly. We are a live music venue – period, the end. If we’re going to survive, we have to make the most of that.

It requires a change in our capacity and the way we think about our business model.

We made the decision based on our normal business patterns, but clearing out half the room will also make it easier to comply with social distancing precautions when we reopen.

Up until now, we typically had 2-4 ticketed shows per month and the remaining weekend dates were filled with local artists. Rock Bingo Music Trivia happens every Tuesday, Open Mic happens every Thursday. We’ll keep our regular weekly events, but my goal is to increase the number of ticketed shows with touring artists significantly. We’re also exploring the idea of running more than one show a night. I don’t think we can do it when we have a touring artist because it makes soundcheck tricky, but we may try it on nights we have local acts – maybe happy hour music from 5-7pm and an 8pm show inside. If it works, it would give us 2-3 extra hours to work with.

We’ve resisted instituting a required minimum purchase, though it’s not uncommon in venues in other cities. But we may not have a choice, because on any given night we’ve got at least a handful of people who are not purchasing anything. We are not a public library or a not-for-profit entity and food and drink sales are the only revenue we have. I never imagined it would be something we’d have to explain, but somehow here we are. We’ll explore that idea more as we get closer to reopening…I have no idea how we would be able to enforce it if we did it.

All of these conversations began well before the Coronavirus crisis, but this extended closure has made the need for us to make changes a more urgent priority. It’s frustrating because we felt we had really turned a corner with the business when we came back from our holiday break in January. We weren’t where we needed to be yet, but we saw a nice bump in our business, and traffic and sales finally became a little more consistent. That being said, we’ve got a lot of sold-out shows with our current capacity under our belt.  Even with a drinking crowd and a pair of rockstar bartenders hustling around the room, there is a ceiling for what we can do in sales – and it isn’t enough.

 

 

COVID-19 UPDATE

Because a lot of you have asked, here’s what’s happening with potential COVID-19 assistance for The 443:

EIDL: We applied for an EIDL Emergency Advance about 10 days before the funds run out of the first stimulus package, but haven’t heard anything yet. I am not sure if it’s still possible to get assistance if we’re already in the pipeline and there doesn’t seem to be a way to check out status. I’m hopeful we have a shot at the second round of funding the government just approved. I’m also hopeful that they will remove the ridiculous 500 employees per location loophole for the loan. Does anyone really consider a chain of 100+ publically traded restaurants a “small business“??  If we manage to get this, it’s by far the more helpful of the two programs for our situation. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

PPP: I called our credit union a couple of days after the Paycheck Protection Program was launched because they did not have anything set up on their website yet – like many banks, they were not prepared to launch. I investigated other banks who were ready to go, but they required that you have an existing business account with them to apply.

I was told someone would call me to walk me through it, but the customer service rep could not tell me how long that might take.

Several days later we received an email link to submit our application, along with a list of 8 items of documentation. I submitted the application but discovered the site allowed a max of 5 documents. I emailed the remaining information to a commercial loan officer, and it took a few more days to get a response. Still, it was wrapped up before the funds ran out…or so I thought.

On Friday we got this:

So…we might not have sent in all supporting documentation. Or maybe we did. But even if we did, the credit union didn’t submit the application in time. Why is the exact status such a secret? The whole process was a shitshow and I plan to switch banks once we get through this

PPP Is truly only helpful for businesses that are able to open at full capacity. In order to have the loan forgiven you have to use 75% of it for payroll expenses. My staff is making more on unemployment because of the extra $600 subsidy, so I can’t bring them back until we actually are able to open. I applied anyway on the off chance we would be able to open before the June 30 deadline, but I honestly doubt they will allow bars and restaurants to operate at full capacity for a while yet. Even if they do, I think people are going to be pretty cautious about going anywhere that might have a crowd. I want to get things going as much anyone else, but bars and music venues should be the very last businesses to open.

RENT: Our landlords have graciously agreed to defer our rent payments until we’re able to reopen, at which point we’ll have to pay more each month until we’re square. So, we’re not in imminent danger of losing our space, which is a huge relief.

COMMUNITY SUPPORT: We’ve been touched by all the community support we’ve received. We’ve added 6 new VIP Patrons since we closed our doors and sold a bunch of gift cards too. I brought our Square terminal home so I could easily activate the cards without running back and forth to the bar. So now we have this station set up in my living room:

 

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has ordered a card or VIP membership during this crazy time. We know everyone is under a lot of stress and it means the world that so many of you have reached out to support us. Your kindness and generosity are appreciated more than we can say.

.Stay safe and healthy and we’re looking forward to seeing you all on the other side. Updates on our new set up coming soon!