We celebrated our 2 month anniversary yesterday!
It’s been a crazy journey…trying to figure out the best way to do everything, refining our processes and learning what works in our small space. You can prepare all you want to open a new business, but most of it you figure out by actually doing it. Trial by fire, right?
We did it!
We held a “soft opening” on January 17 and we were only open for evening hours for the first two weeks. It was a smart decision because it allowed us to get comfortable with our POS system and correct mistakes with our bar set up before we layered in the daytime component.
Photo Credit: Juan Junco
We have A LOT that has to happen behind our bar – aside from the full liquor, wine and beer set up, we are also a coffee house with an espresso machine, multiple grinders and coffee machines.
Photo Credit: Sandy Roe
We don’t have a kitchen, so we are assembling sandwiches and appetizers on a 36″ cold prep table at the end of the bar. Every single inch matters in that space and it definitely took a few weeks to figure out the best way to set up for efficient workflow.
Photo Credit: Sandy Roe
Pivot…PIVOT!
One thing I wish we had done differently, though, is to postpone opening full cafe hours. On January 28 we started our “regular” hours, opening in the morning for coffee and serving lunch. While the nighttime business is growing steadily, the day hours have proved to be a lot more challenging.
Mondays and Tuesdays were our originally our “short” days – we were open 7am-4pm. But, after about 6 weeks of spending more on payroll than we were taking in, throwing out a lot of food and dealing with off-the-charts exhaustion from working 7 days a week with a lot of 20 hour days, we made the decision to close on Mondays and Tuesdays.
It’s hard to be a good hostess when you’re a sleep-deprived zombie who can’t string a coherent sentence together anymore.
They aren’t truly days off, but having a couple of days that we’re not open allows me to tackle critical tasks like booking bands, creating marketing materials and updating our website.
Not to mention making sure I have clean socks for the week.
It was the right decision for right now, but we may circle back to it at some point when our business is a little more established.
The Tao of Mike Rann
I had a chat with my friend Mike who also recently opened a bar, but he’s about 3 months ahead of us. I was lamenting at how I wasn’t able to keep up with, well…ANYTHING. I have owned other businesses and understand the importance of bookkeeping and big picture planning, of working ON your business and not IN it. Not being able to stay on top of the management part of the business was freaking me out, but it was all I could do to handle the day to day operations. I recognized that standing over the panini press for hours pumping out sandwiches is probably not the ideal scenario as an owner.
He told me that he went through exactly the same thing but eventually realized that the most important task in a new business is managing the guest experience. You have to have booze on the shelf, beer in your coolers and food to serve. You have to make sure everyone feels welcome, and that they are getting served in a timely and friendly manner. First impressions are everything, especially in a new business.
He pointed out that waking up in 6 months with a pristine desk with every piece of paper filed neatly away won’t mean anything if my bar is empty. In short, sometimes making sandwiches IS the best use of my time, and chatting with our guests takes precedence over everything.
Right on, Mike.
Funny Story…
On a busy Friday night a few weeks after we opened, I was breaking down our soup re-thermalizer behind the bar. I pulled out the insert and set it on the cold prep table. I grabbed the heating unit and headed to the sink to dump the water out when I heard a loud crack and felt a big rush of something warm and wet on my back.
I froze and slowly turned around to see that the insert full of chili had fallen off the prep table, but rather than overturning and spilling on the floor it hit the ground upright and unleashed an impressive tidal wave of chili from my hair to my ankles. Upon further inspection, we discovered it on our hanging glassware rack, liquor bottles and it even traveled all the way across the bar to one of our seating areas – about 10-12 feet away.
Weeks later, we are still are finding bits of chili in odd places.
Moments of Transcendence
We have had some really spectacular moments during our shows…stunning performances where you could hear a pin drop in the room, or the audience spontaneously singing along with a performer. Donna Colton closing out her show with an exquisite a cappella rendition of Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah”.
Moments where the anxiety and stress of running a new business melt away and I’m humbled by the gifted performer standing in front of me in this beautiful space we’ve created to showcase their talents.
Music can be a spiritual experience if you stop and pay attention.
Photo Credit: Sandy Roe
Good News!
We got our permanent liquor license this week!!!!!! I think we might be done jumping through fiery government designed hoops?
Goals
We have accomplished a lot in the last two months, and every week we make a little progress. It’s a big puzzle, and every day we conquer a small piece of it.
We have a unique business model for this area – we are a coffee house with a full bar, a small menu and a focus on live acoustic music. The idea was that the daytime cafe business would help support the live music component. It’s difficult for a small venue to make enough at the bar to offset the additional expense of paying a band and sound tech when there isn’t a cover charge or paid ticket. We are definitely experimenting with different payment structures, but we had hoped to keep free shows in the mix by developing a healthy daytime business.
Our evening business is going well, but unfortunately, we’re struggling a bit to make coffee and lunch business more consistent. One of my projects on my “days off” this week is to flesh out some marketing ideas to help with that. We are also playing around with new lunch recipes and figuring out what we can do for breakfast without having the ability to actually cook. Finalizing our specialty cocktail menu and selling more tickets for this week’s shows are on the list too.
We are meeting new friends every day and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. We’ve had dozens of guests tell us that the Listening Room at 443 is exactly what Syracuse needs, but the reality is that the business is not supporting itself yet. We don’t have unlimited funds to pump into it and the grace period for rent in our family owned building has come to an end. This is where the rubber meets the road.
How You Can Help
We appreciate the support of everyone in the community and we are working our asses off to make 443 the very best little live music venue/coffee house/bar it can be. Ultimately, it will be up to the community to support it.
If you believe in what we are doing and want to support, stop by for a cup of coffee (it’s really good!) or a cocktail. Schedule a meeting in one of our living room areas (we’re happy to reserve them), or buy tickets to a show (Dave Keller and MG3 with Ingrid Jensen are happening this week). Sharing our stuff on social media is super awesome, but grabbing a friend (or 6) and visiting us in person is even better.
See you out there!
