3 Tips for Opening a Bar in the USA

Like many beginning entrepreneurs, you may be primed and ready to open up a bar in the United States in your neck of the woods. This could be a lifelong dream that you’ve had or it could be a more recent idea. No matter what, just know that some aspects of opening a bar are going to be easy while other parts might be really difficult.

As an example, if you’re opening a bar in Texas you’ll need to understand liquor laws and other legal aspects of business. Monshaugen & Van Huff can help you get all of your legal ducks in a row.

Or maybe you have a tough time keeping track of employee hours and you’re tracking things manually in a book. Clockspot can help you digitize the process and let employees clock in and clock out online.

Besides the areas we’ve already mentioned, we’ll share some other tips to make it easier than ever to open a bar. Please use this information to your advantage sooner rather than later.

Tip #1: Discover Your Target Audience

Depending on where you happen to open your bar, you’ll need to discover your target audience to figure out how to decorate and market your business. Yes, this is a crucial step that many successful bar owners often overlook. They open their bar and never think about the neighborhood it’s in. They create something that they might find appealing but doesn’t necessarily appeal to the rest of the people living and working in the neighborhood.

As an example, if you plan to open up a new bar in the business district in your community, you’ll probably have many young professionals with money coming into your establishment on a fairly regular basis. So you obviously do not want to open a biker bar in this neighborhood because it just doesn’t fit.

So think about your location and pay close attention to the people in the community. You want to create a theme based on your ideal customer in the area and then completely run with it.

Tip #2: Be Consistent with Your Business Concept

Now that you’ve discovered your target market, it’s time to create the right environment to make them feel at home in your establishment. This way you’ll have everything you need to attract your ideal customer.

As an example, if you plan to open up a sports bar, one of the biggest things you’ll need is the best TV screens. If you have huge TV screens all over the bar with many games from the most popular sports on them, you’ll definitely attract your target audience.

On the other hand, if you plan on opening up a dive bar based on your target audience, you do not need to have the latest technology and you probably don’t want to have humongous TVs either. This is a totally different audience and you need to have the right decor and functionality to give them what they expect.

Tip #3: Pay Attention to the Competition

Simply put, your competitors have already been down the road that you currently travel so it’s best to pay attention of them. See what they do and see how they manage their bar because you could come up with some excellent tips and tricks this way.

By watching your competitors, you are giving yourself an advantage by learning the ropes from people who have already been there and done that. This will help you cut down on your learning curve and make it easier for you to survive and thrive in a difficult industry.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are definitely going to be some challenges to opening up a bar and making it successful. But if you use the tips and information we shared today, you’ll put yourself in a better position to survive and thrive in this industry.