Bring Your Own Drink - Bar... Is it possible?

[chris.quinn89]

Hello all,

Maybe some will view this as abit of a silly question but anyway here it goes...

There are plenty of restaurants that allow customers to bring their own drink for consumption on the premises but does this require any special requirments i.e. food must be consumed or a special license must be applied for...

The real question is could I open a bar that only sells soft drinks but allows customers to bring their own alcoholic drinks? My revenue would be generated by charging a small fee for admission.

Thankyou in advanced for your response.

Christopher

 

[WJP]

Why would you want to? Your business would be considerably more profitable if you sold alcoholic drinks too. I can't understand why you'd opt for the business model you're proposing rather than running a standard bar. If you're concerned about standard licensing issues feel free to drop me a PM with any questions.

 

[sanjiv]

I think that is a potentially lucrative idea.

You would probably attract more customers that way because they can bring their own drinks and it would be good if you served food.

It would also be good if you served alcoholic drinks also so that if the customer runs out of booze, you are making money there too.

It may not work though. Those a just what I would imagine the possible pro's are.

The con's are that you are not making any money of a large alcoholic drinks market.

There is a very fine line between the balance of pro's and con's and it is difficult say which way its swinging.

Don't think it would work with a bar but perhaps if you served good food too.

 

[WJP]

I could only see it working in an environment where people do not drink a lot (or the amount they do drink is not physically large). To explain, it can work with restaurants because people have a bottle of wine, which they can easily carry in themselves, but would be less likely to work in a bar because people would not necessarily want to carry eight cans of beer around with them...

 

[wolbright]

Your idea is very clever. Its how you present the business to your target market. First, you must convey in a way that bringing your own drink is the "IN" thing to entice them to do so. As suggested, yes you should also sell some in case they run out of booze.

My suggestion is, package your bar with good music and good food to entice them to come to your place.

 

[Lee Jones Jnr]

I can't imagine for the life of me why you would want to do this.
There are no licensing requirements for such an idea, but unless you are witholding some important information I don't see the point?

 

[oldeagleeye]

Crap Idea. The place would only attract drunks who wanted to come in out of the cold or drunken teenagers trying to bash the living daylights out of each other every weekend.

I do wish some of our younger members would refrain from giving advice when they don't know a damned thing about the licenced trade and this is about the 'trade' even if the premises are not licenced.

Robert

 

[Lee Jones Jnr]

If it works let me know - I will open a restaurant which is basically a room full of table and chairs where people can bring their own food to eat.

 

[oldeagleeye]

Why not add a few camp beds too TTP - go the full mile and open up a bespoke doss house. I am told by a born again Christian that I know that you can't drink in them there places.

 

[Aussie Dean]

This is a bit of a shocker of an idea.

The whole idea of licensing a premises to serve alcohol is that there is some sort of responsbility in terms of serving the alcohol to underage and drunks.

What would be your primary service? Soft drinks? I think the only reason why restaurants/cafes are allow people to BYO alcohol is that they have applied to do so and that also grog isnt their primary service. (Correct me if I am a little off here).

In terms of profitability I cant see why people would want to pay a fee to drink their alcohol on the premises and also how much could you make by just selling soft drinks.

LoL @ others thinking this idea is good!

 

[DAbusinessconsultant]

I think it depends on the business.

Having a room and saying to people 'hey bring you own alcohol and you can all get smashed here' won't really be a success.

However I have a friend with an indian restaurant - aimed at students and they have a bring your own alcohol policy and it works VERY well.

I businesses aimed at say a majority of muslims etc selling alcohol won't be necessary so again a BYO alcohol policy should be fine.

When I open up my smokers bar it will be on a BYO basis. Yes there are people that will want a drink, but there are off licenses near by, and a pub opposite. I do not want to compete with them, or try and attract drunks who want to start trouble. If they want to smoke and relax with a few mixers between them fine, but having louts come in asking for stellas and kicking up trouble is not what it will be about.

 

[papverpoppies]

My soon to be new business is sorted.

I will convert the barn into a chippy - but you must bring your own, I will just supply the salt and vinegar, of which I will charge £5.00 to cover entry and the use of table and chair!

Gawd, never realised it was that easy - why do you folks make out that runnning a business is so complicated.

Shall we franchise the idea?


Poppy xx

 

[mcgovern]

The only reason for this would be if it was a Muslim establishment

 

[chris.quinn89]

Ok thanks all for your ideas.

The idea isnt to have a room & allow the local idiots drunks & teens to sit & drink. The idea is to create a bar/pub enviroment at a fraction of the cost to the customer. ID all customers & enforce a dress code to keep the drunks out. Perhaps even charge a corkage of say 20p for a beer & 50p for a bottle of wine.

Please remember this isnt a restaurant it is a bar that serves food.

Customer buys 8 Pint beers @ £10, he pays your door addmission @ £3 & pays £1.60 corkage for all 8 beers. The customer has spent £14.60 making each Pint cost him just £1.83 a very cheap night out.

This wouldn't work in pretentious areas but I beleive it may in close knit communities with lower disposable incomes.

The question is when a restaurant decides its going to allow its customers to BYO is there anything they must do? I.e. apply to local council or licensing officer?

Thankyou for your interest.

Christopher

 

[chris.quinn89]

Maybe im not setting the right picture here, your going to allow customers to BYO then take it off them, put it into the fridge then pour it for them when they want it. The only difference between this & any other bar is that its cheaper & customer had to bring the drink wtih them. Now you wouldnt want to be going on a pub crawl & carying your beer around all night from bar to bar. But if you planed to stay in one bar BYO would make little difference.

 

[olivia]

There's a cafe in my town. They are different cafe as they close late, aroun 11pm and they do "bring your own drinks", but you need to order some nibles like nachos etc. I only go there day time, but some of my friends, who are at Uni in the town, said its very popular between students.

 

[chris.quinn89]

That is exactly the of business I am refering to. Although I didnt want to force customers buy food although perhaps it may be easier to insist each customer buys some form on nibbles for £3.50 instead of paying an entry fee.

 

[sanjiv]

I have been to a restaurant where you take your own drinks and it was mid-week and they were pretty busy for that time. The reason was because the food was really good and fairly quick.

 

[chris.quinn89]

Probably should have given more background information in the first post. Im located in N. Ireland where we do not have 24hr bars, serving stops at 11pm however if you where a BYO bar this wouldn't apply so you could boast longer opening hours. You would also be alot cheaper than the most bars. Your selling points would be a cheaper night out, food being served & longer opening hours.

 

[papverpoppies]

I have been to a restaurant where you take your own drinks and it was mid-week and they were pretty busy for that time. The reason was because the food was really good and fairly quick.

That is fairly common and all that is needed is a table license (I think), plus people are diluting the booze with food, a few nibbles are hardly going to do that.

So say you charge or you insist customes pay to buy the snacks, how the heck are you going to control who comes in - bouncers on the door?

Yes, restricting it to area, but folks will travel if they think they can sit at a table and slosh down their own cheap booze..I think you would really stuggle on the planning aspect..as this is not what local Councils want.

Poppy xx

 

[steviemac]

Chris - firstly you will get a few people here who love to knock you and make fun of you......but carry on.

Let me tell you, your idea has been implemented before. Many years ago in Belfast, (very early eighties) we had clubs just like you are describing. You paid an entrance fee, went in with your mega carry out and basically got hammered. Did it myself quite a few times as a young man in my twenties. There were quite a few of these clubs in Belfast.

Yes they got a big crowd, but you create a bit of a monster when you start somewhere like this. You create an environment where people literally pour the drink into themselves, cos, its dirt cheap. Then the drink has to be kept behind the bar in many cases, as when there are bottles of vod and tins of beer sitting around, the temptation to nick others carryouts when you are hammered is always there!

So needless to say, huge fights often ensued. This was Belfast at the height of our troubles, and violence was rife everywhere ya went!

So just sharing my experience of drinking in places like this. I think you would be inviting trouble, cos you like attract a certain type of crowd and once you provide them with virtually unlimited cheap booze, you have lit the fuse and you can stand back and watch the fireworks!

 

[Lee Jones Jnr]

It's not a restaurant, it's a bar that serves food... But not drink...
Sounds like a cafe to me.

 

[chris.quinn89]

Steviemac THANKYOU THANKYOU & THANKYOU. I knew something similar had been done before but had been closed due to paramilitary involvment many years ago before my time. I think the trick would be to keep the drink behind the bar & charge a small corkage fee. I think door staff or some type of security would be a necessity as you would of course get plenty of idiots but you would also get the budget conscience students etc.

 

[oldeagleeye]

You started off Chris by saying it was to be a bar selling just soft drinks and NOT a restaraunt. Now it seems it is. As other members have pointed out that is a different ball game just as there is a huge difference between owning a wine bar and a city centre pub.

In any event I am sorry to say that I don't think that you have a clue what your doing here. Be it a licenced or unlicenced restaraunt for instance while price can play a part it is the food and abience that really count and you can't create that on the cheap which seems to be at the heart of your business plan.

What surprises me is that you should know this being in Ireland. With drink so expensive the vast majoirity of people leave it to relatively late before they decend on a pub or restaraunt because they know that with everyone else turning up at say 9 pm the place will be buzzing straight away.

In other words no-one wants to sit there nursing a drink in a boring almost empty venue.

Now that I have just found out where you come from however I am going to turn your idea on it's head and tell you how it could work but it will not make you a popular man in town with the other bar owners.

That is to hire a hall on a friday & or sat night get a temp licence each time and sell the booze at cost price while you pocket an entrace fee instead.

Robert

BTW. It is cheaper to get a licence than kit out a catering kitchen. About £300 for a personal managers licence including training course and exam.

 

[chris.quinn89]

Cafe is probably the best way to describe it for now

 

[Moneyman]

It would only work with a very strict admissions policy and a certain group.Ie make it a student only spot near a UNI. That way there is peer regulation (in Theory)
I would have thought all the 'elf and safety etc would cost so much that the charges would start to level out with cheap pubs.

 

[papverpoppies]

Cafe is probably the best way to describe it for now

So has your intended business evolved because of what has been posted, because that was not your orginal idea!

Good if you are moving the goal posts, but you need to get a clear idea in your head and then onto paper, before you go any further.

Ok, so it costs nothing to change the wording in an email or two, but it soons starts to stack up if you get it wrong once you start to look for property and then submit plans.

Even though you say you will now be offering food, this will still not go down a bundle in many areas with planners and local residents, so choose the location wisely.

Poppy xx

 

[chris.quinn89]

oldeagleeye N.Ireland is within the UK. Drink is no more expensive here than it is in your weather spoons accross the water. Your also quite right I dont have a clue thats why Im asking, but the core idea is to provide a BAR ENVIROMENT for people to come & meet & drink on the cheap past the usual 11pm time. Now either they pay for admission into the venue or they buy some cheap but adequate food.

 

[chris.quinn89]

Ok some good points & some not so good, infact some people really do have to much time on their hands clearly.

Ok the "cafe" may or may not serve food... whether it does or not is neither here nor there because this isnt going to be the attracting factor.

The question is MUST customers purchase food in order for them to consume alcohol on the premises?

Thanks for all your help...

 

[sanjiv]

If it doesn't serve food, how will you make any money?

 

[chris.quinn89]

Admission + Corkage

Dont be mistaken into thinking this will make the type of revenue a bar would but it would make a source of income.

 

[sanjiv]

Admission + Corkage

Corkage? How will you enforce that and then you might aswell serve drinks yourself.

 

[papverpoppies]

Ok some good points & some not so good, infact some people really do have to much time on their hands clearly.

Ok the "cafe" may or may not serve food... whether it does or not is neither here nor there because this isnt going to be the attracting factor.

The question is MUST customers purchase food in order for them to consume alcohol on the premises?

Thanks for all your help...

Well surely you could have avoided wasting your time and ours by asking your local council.

If I was thinking along your lines, they would be my first port of call (but then again they will tell you the truth) not want you want to hear!

Poppyxx

 

[papverpoppies]

Corkage? How will you enforce that and then you might aswell serve drinks yourself.

Corkage, do they not use their own teeth these days (well they do in Eastenders)!

Can you charge someone for using their own equipment

Poppy

 

[luvbusiness]

Somehow i,m not sure for me the idea works.If you are going to keep the drunks etc out looking for a little better class of person do you think they are going to travel to your bar with bottles of wine under their arms or a four pack in each hand.Doesnt look really cool does it..

Maybe if I could turn up with my transit and unload a few pallets of cans...now your talking.

Anyone for a beer?

 

[chris.quinn89]

Thankyou Poppy, I wasn't sure who to ask about this.

Sanjiv you enforce corkage by taking the drink & serving it over the bar.

 

[sanjiv]

Thankyou Poppy, I wasn't sure who to ask about this.

Sanjiv you enforce corkage by taking the drink & serving it over the bar.

That is not enforcing it. That it telling me how you will do it.

Whats to say that they won't just open it themselves? They will and you would know about it becuase no-one would be coming to the bar to get their drink opened.

 

[SneakSMS]

It's far too risky, you'd have no control over the amount people are drinking on your premises which will only lead to problems.

 

[Tej]

That is not enforcing it. That it telling me how you will do it.

Whats to say that they won't just open it themselves? They will and you would know about it becuase no-one would be coming to the bar to get their drink opened.

What experience do you have of this sneaky stuff?... are you used to doing this yourself?

I did not know that 16 year olds were allowed into late night bars/licenced premises..

Maybe I am wrong...

 

[SneakSMS]

I did not know that 16 year olds were allowed into late night bars/licenced premises..

This can be allowed on a license, it's a pain to make sure they don't get served or given drinks by anyone else though.

More hassle than it's worth