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Nail Rat posted:No 70s or 80s games and you need to pay to play them. Sounds awful, sorry. My friend and I were on a 3 game winning streak in NBA Jam at that place and it stopped giving us free plays 
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Jun 6, 2016 13:53
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quote:The bar will run two menus. An "every day" menu, that'll be offered from open till probably around 7 or 8 PM, and a "happy hour" menu, which will run from then till close. The every day menu will feature solely non-alcoholic drinks and simpler, less expensive food. The happy hour menu will expand the drink selection to include beers and cocktails Between this and other things you say in this post, I really think you need to step back and think about this a lot harder. You want to pay for all this expensive equipment, pay for a liquor license and all the headaches that come with it, and then not serve alcohol before 8 pm or so? There is absolutely no way you can pay for all that equipment without selling a lot of beer, wine and shots. 30-50 computers, you're talking 40-75k. Right there, if you pretend you don't need to pay for electricity or a hell of an internet line, you need to sell about 120-225k worth of food just to pay for the COMPUTERS. Let alone everything else that goes along with this. Selling cheap food and soda will not get this done. Also you have this rear end backwards, "happy hour" / late night is when you're supposed to serve simpler food because people are drinking and just snacking, they theoretically already had a real dinner or will go home to a real dinner unless they just stay and keep drinking and snacking. Where the hell is the money coming from to buy all this stuff? And have you considered partnering with BaseballCPHiker to create a floating residential/commercial boat hybrid you could both live in and run a barcade on? Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 14:03
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i would go to a floating houseboat barcade airbnb/uber hybrid that would slowly take me down the mississippi like a modern day asian tom sawyer
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Jun 6, 2016 14:30
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I wonder why when nerds have an idea for a small business it always ends up being some sort of nerd hangout. Why is it never something like a convenience store, hair salon, or dry cleaner that you can actually make a living on?
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Jun 6, 2016 16:13
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Just for a frame of reference I was hanging out last month at a cool nerd dive bar with a kung fu movie theme and a small MAME arcade cabinet room in the back. The two owners were working behind the bar, the one I was talking to the most has about 10 years industry experience. They have been in business about three years. I asked about monthly expenses. They have not yet broken even but are almost there. Can you afford to work for free for multiple years, 12+ hours a day, never taking a day off, while not even taking in enough revenue to cover your costs (rent, payroll, etc?) Because that's reality for most new small bars and restaurants, before you throw in the colossal expense sink of the equipment and extra floor space you will need for your idea.
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Jun 6, 2016 16:54
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Tyro posted:Just for a frame of reference I was hanging out last month at a cool nerd dive bar with a kung fu movie theme and a small MAME arcade cabinet room in the back. Hope no video game publishers ever find out about that. Getting sued over a MAME cabinet: BWM.
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Jun 6, 2016 17:15
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neogeo0823 posted:and because I love a good cold beer by my side while I shot manns in whatever game I'm playing. Let me save you several hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of stress. Go buy a six pack of your favorite beer. If it is not already cold, chill it until it is. Crack one open, and enjoy it while playing your favorite shoot manns game. You can have that experience anytime you want. You will practically never have it while operating this hypothetical business.
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Jun 6, 2016 17:22
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My suggestiong, stick to what you know. You know programming or something, start a business around that.
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Jun 6, 2016 19:07
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Nail Rat posted:Hope no video game publishers ever find out about that. Getting sued over a MAME cabinet: BWM. Hah good point that I hadn't considered!
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Jun 6, 2016 21:23
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Nail Rat posted:Hope no video game publishers ever find out about that. Getting sued over a MAME cabinet: BWM. Now I am curious, if you bought broken boards for the roms installed would that qualify the licensing? Technically you own the machine, you are just opting for an image based presentation instead of fixing antiquated hardware.
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Jun 6, 2016 22:46
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BossRighteous posted:Now I am curious, if you bought broken boards for the roms installed would that qualify the licensing? Technically you own the machine, you are just opting for an image based presentation instead of fixing antiquated hardware. It sure as hell better. We've got like 25 mame boards out there pretending to be the real thing because the original boards have died. No one's come after us yet. The sounds are sometimes slightly off, but eh. Haven't heard a complaint yet, compared to the endless bitching when we were getting running a real ms. pac-man with speed roms. The stupid thing is that none of the companies are making their own for cheap. Like I'm sure if Midway made a Jamma board for $100 with just one old game on it, we'd happily fork out the extra $50 to have a "legit" one. This way the company is at least getting paid for the product they developed. But we're not going to pay $100 for the original board, because even if it's working it'll probably break tomorrow.
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Jun 7, 2016 01:01
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OP, do you have any experience at all in food service, hospitality, retail, or any direct public-facing job? Have you ever thrown a drunk person out of a business? How good are you at mopping up vomit? Do you know how to hire short-order cooks? How drunk can they be before they're too drunk? You realize a good chunk of the bar/restaurant workforce is high/drunk at any particular time, right? Do you have any experience dealing with habitual substance users/abusers? Are you familiar with the Doobie's Dog House shitshow? That's you, you're Doobie, except you need way way more money for a vastly more involved idea with enormously greater startup and operating costs. All that guy wanted to do was set up a one/two person operation to sell hot dogs, soda, and chips. You're looking at something dozens of times more complex and expensive and you have no more experience, money, or know-how than Doobie, and you live in an area where your costs for space, licenses and permits, and labor are going to be way higher than his. You're some kind of programmer, right? What if you got a logo made, registered as a company with all proper licenses and stuff, and started putting in bids? You could try and sell your services to your former employers and/or their direct competitors, since that's a business you know something about. You already own a computer. You should have some friends over, drink some beers, play some games, and drop this idea. You're going to need decades of experience and way more money and resources than you possess to pull this off. You know how to code? Do that.
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Jun 7, 2016 16:55
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OP, if your post had read "Hey guys, I've been running a small bar with a kitchen for 8 years, I've been running at a profit for 4 years now, and I'm looking at expanding/moving my operation down the street to a larger location and adding arcade machines and maybe a play table or three. Can anyone offer me any advice?" I think we'd be linking you places to buy arcade equipment, licensing rules, and suggesting what house rules (official and unofficial) you're going to need. As it is you know jack squat about what you want to pull off and don't have the money to do it. This idea is way out of your area of expertise.
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Jun 7, 2016 17:05
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Uncle Enzo posted:Are you familiar with the Doobie's Dog House shitshow? That's you, you're Doobie, except you need way way more money for a vastly more involved idea with enormously greater startup and operating costs. Warhams. piled high
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Jun 7, 2016 17:22
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BarbarianElephant posted:I think you should get a job working in a bar\restaurant\cafe so you can get some real experience of how this sort of business works. Your ideas are a bit "pie in the sky" right now. More than a bit.
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Jun 8, 2016 02:42
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Thinking about OP's idea a little bit made me wonder if there is such a thing as a "tournament space" business? Does anyone have something like this where they live? A group in my city tried hosting game tournaments in various cheap crapholes and I couldn't help thinking the whole thing would feel less skeezy if they had a nice, dedicated venue. Barcades are popping up here and there and they seem to do reasonably well but they always sell food or host live music and can't really focus on hosting 100 people with their Alienware laptops to play Starcraft or whatever.
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Jul 29, 2016 01:22
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Through The Decade posted:Thinking about OP's idea a little bit made me wonder if there is such a thing as a "tournament space" business? Does anyone have something like this where they live? A group in my city tried hosting game tournaments in various cheap crapholes and I couldn't help thinking the whole thing would feel less skeezy if they had a nice, dedicated venue. Barcades are popping up here and there and they seem to do reasonably well but they always sell food or host live music and can't really focus on hosting 100 people with their Alienware laptops to play Starcraft or whatever. There was a LAN party place that opened up where I lived that had like twenty computers, each with steam accounts that had a poo poo-ton of games pre-installed (apparently valve has this deal...) It unfortunately died after a year or two because it was in a suburban area and charged like 3 dollars an hour, but it did host a couple of CS:Source tournaments, which were great for attracting dozens of people who just watched the tournament attendees play and didn't actually buy playing time.
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Jul 31, 2016 22:26
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What is the highest point in a room you've ever cleaned of human feces? If it isn't the ceiling, you haven't worked in food service long enough.
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Jul 31, 2016 23:21
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My local game store runs a business blog that's pretty good. Here are two places to start on the world of tabletop gaming. This is in an accessible part to fast growing suburbs in the Phoenix area, so a lot of population served by this one store. Here's a highlight for you. Q: Any advice for those who would like to start a business in this industry? A: You can make more money doing almost anything else. Then you will have money for games and more time to spend playing them. Don't turn your recreation into work. Q: Would you do it all again if you had to start from scratch today with just your initial money? A: Yes and no. Yes, for sure, I would do a much better job of it with all the knowledge I have gained from doing it. I would build an amazing store and nothing would go to waste. No, on the other hand, I can do almost anything else with that money and it will be less work and more profitable. I would probably open a coffee shop instead, or a business installing cabinets or air conditioners. Boring, but far more lucrative and stable. Then I could buy all the cards and games I wanted. http://dsgcw.blogspot.com/2016/06/fatcq-fast-answers-to-customer.html http://dsgcw.blogspot.com/2016/06/fatcq-fast-answers-to-customer_27.html
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Aug 1, 2016 22:49
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I've been thinking of a videogame bar for a while. There are a few examples of this thing working, but mostly the games are novelty. You can't really make money off the games so you have to be good at everything else That said, novelty does draw crowds. I know game bars that draw crowds during the day because the owners are just cool with that stuff. It brings in adjacent-to-nerd crowds other times. And if you are in Austin or Vancouver San Francisco I'm sure you could figure out a way to make a custom cab that would draw the dorks. It would be the cherry on top of an already established persona, but it would be totally dope to have. If you're in NYC you might want to check out Babycastles to see how they make things work there. Good luck.
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Aug 7, 2016 04:31
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Babycastles is awesome - and an art gallery (for games) - so I suspect they make money mainly from things other than drinks.
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Aug 7, 2016 21:36
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There's a pinball place in Tucson that does really well. http://danddpinball.com/index.php The story is that the owners are a married couple, who are both big dollar engineers and have been collecting pinball tables for a long time. They leased a tiny space right in the middle of all the downtown bars and entertainment, and open it on evenings during the busy times for the bars there. No admission, no concessions sold, and you pay 50 cents per game and stay for as long as you feel like playing super well maintained pinball machines. It appears to be pretty successful. I think there's a few reasons why: 1. No food/drink sold there, but bring in whatever you like. This means you don't have to deal with any of the nonsense involved with liquor licenses, health codes, commercial kitchen stuff, and every other headache that comes from running a restaurant. 2. Unique product, that's also highly accessible. Pinball is a niche hobby, and there are zero other places in the state where you have access to 30 well maintained tables. It's still highly accessible and interesting to people who aren't pinball enthusiasts too. 3. Great location with a lot of foot traffic, evergreen customer base from nearby university. They're probably getting a deal on rent too, because there aren't many other businesses that would even fit in a space that small. This idea probably checks zero of those boxes.
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Aug 9, 2016 00:24
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Do they "do really well" in that they're busy all the time, or do you have access to their books? It seems a lot like a hobby project, which is awesome, but not really the same thing as trying to make a living.
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Aug 9, 2016 18:52
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Do they "do really well" in that they're busy all the time, or do you have access to their books? Hobby project that is profitable, which I agree is not the same thing at all as earning a living.
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Aug 9, 2016 18:54
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If you are busy, a barcade will make a lot more money with a liquor license than without. However, you want to take advantage of it all the time, not during "happy hour" only. I'm guessing OP has moved on, it was a horrible idea and they hadn't thought it through at all and they probably realized this. They even showed a fundamental misunderstanding of what "happy hour" was. Nail Rat fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Aug 9, 2016 |
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Aug 9, 2016 19:49
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Why a barcade though? Why does every inexperienced chuckefuck who knows nothing about running a business go right for the "sexy" ideas instead of practical ones that make people money? Barcades, breweries, niche restaurants, grow ops, indie film store/streaming services, etc. drat hipsters. Stop thinking in terms of "what you're passionate about", and focus on "what actually works." Spoiler alert: it ain't gonna involve video games. I haven't ran a business myself (I like being happy), but am constantly on retainer for several small startups in Austin and they're all dry, boring companies with services that are in demand like marketing for attorneys and copyediting services because we like making money, paying our bills, and providing for the fam. Can or should an unemployed person even start a business? This is all sorts of megacliches rolled into one. KingSlime fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Aug 10, 2016 |
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Aug 10, 2016 22:46
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Do you want to run a business? what did you do before this? why are you so gung-ho to go into such a high-risk market with no background experience or general knowledge? You understand this will be an endless stream of unrewarding work for a long time? If you have your heart set on some nerd bullshit instead of thinking through a business model, I'd look into Escape Rooms. The upfront cost will be high but probably not compared to a goddamn arcade bar, and overhead will be low. Play as many as you can in the area, ask as many questions as they'll answer, read this white paper, try to find a place with enough square footage that is somewhere people actually want to go(this is important), get some designs together if you're puzzle minded at all or else find a partner who is, then have an embarrassing conversation with a contractor and try to get a quote. If you manage to not gently caress up the location and put together even a middling production you will probably not fail. i haven't been in the escape room business for long but there's at least some reason they're popping up everywhere.
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Aug 18, 2016 04:32
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Open up a plumbing store that converts into a bar at night and call it "poo poo Bar". No fat nerd is gonna want to come to your place and play computer games on a bunch of dirty sticky keyboards with beer spilled all over them unless the objective is to pop open some of the PC cases and rip out some hardware.
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Aug 18, 2016 05:43
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Somberbrero posted:If you manage to not gently caress up the location and put together even a middling production you will probably not fail. i haven't been in the escape room business for long but there's at least some reason they're popping up everywhere. OP hasn't posted in months but I can almost guarantee that this is just another fad that will die in like 3 years.
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Aug 18, 2016 14:37
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Inept posted:OP hasn't posted in months but I can almost guarantee that this is just another fad that will die in like 3 years. I actually looked into starting an escape room in my area, but the market is already pretty flooded and laws are not suitable in the close area I live in. I would definitely invest $$ in a decently sized business-friendly metro area without an existing escape room. If you can get there before the franchises do, it's a very lucrative business.
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Aug 19, 2016 02:30
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If I worked somewhere that wanted me to go do one of those rooms I would straight up revert to 4th grader on the playground refusing to play on a toy he doesn't want to. Like I'd straight up pout and tell them "no way, gently caress that poo poo, you're a dumbass" and I think that's a totally reasonable response.
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Aug 24, 2016 14:20
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Pryor on Fire posted:If I worked somewhere that wanted me to go do one of those rooms I would straight up revert to 4th grader on the playground refusing to play on a toy he doesn't want to. Like I'd straight up pout and tell them "no way, gently caress that poo poo, you're a dumbass" and I think that's a totally reasonable response. I do the same, but for the annual "team building" ski trip. No, I'm not spending ~$500 and vacation days on 2-3 days of a sport I don't like, in a climate I don't like so that the company skiers can get a free room (the only thing the company covers) at where ever has got the hottest powder/gnar/honey dew.
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Aug 24, 2016 15:42
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Well I grew up on snow and love skiing so I'd disagree with you there, I've been on a few corporate trips to Vail and Breck and they put us up in decent condos/hotels and paid for passes/rentals and food and everything and it's been super fun. But of course skiing is stupid expensive no loving way should a company ask an employee to pay any part of any event touching the mountains. That's dumb if that's the expectation. Pryor on Fire fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Aug 24, 2016 |
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Aug 24, 2016 15:46
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