I would not touch the BCS bar scene with a ten-foot pole. For those of you that have been out for a while, think of how many of the bars that you used to frequent are long gone. College kids are just too fickle and trendy.

pretty sure the chicken has survived on faded glory name recognition alone for decades. That and the fact they have put exactly $18.42 into the place over the last decade. But we keep a'comin.

ive driven by that building many times and seen the for sle sign and thought, "hey, that would be really cool," and then I slap myself and go back to looking for rental real estate investments.

Texadelphia? TEXADELPHIA?!?!?!? That is a ;aldkjf;alkj tsip joint. It's over-priced and sucks compared to the other 50 sandwich joints.

I like the soul food idea on Page Juan but, also as stated, opening a new restaurant - especially in College Station - takes some Fortitude.

Good luck!

Braum's!

As horrendous as the restaurant failure rate is, opening in a preexisting restaurant space compounds those odds quite a bit. If you're a national chain or franchise, that's a different story.

Sparky's....Remember a night when Sparky Hardy (sp), lunatic owner of Sparkys, came into the Chicken all drunked up. Started screaming and yelling about how he was going to run em out of business etc.... Donnie physically threw him out. It was great. Sparky's was more of a CT place where the Chicken attracted mostly non-regs.
I think that that nut job ran for mayor or something a few years after we left.
Lots of memories in that place..and dead brain cells....

I haven't read every response, but it's almost guaranteed that a place with good pizza and good beer will be successful. Not just crap pizza, I mean a good variety of hand made pizza, no cutting corners. Think Bj's or old chicago.

And 50 taps is way too much, you'll have kegs sitting there for months considering your location.

Go down to 10, make em move quicker.

quote:

---

Know your customer. Most college kids don't have a sophisticated enough pallet to appreciate 50+ beers. Especially since most will be pricey.

---

'Most will be pricey'.. that is entirely up to the bar owner. Rockwell tavern here in NW houston has great craft beers and they are $2-$4 for happy hour, and only $1 more outside of happy hour.

You can make money on $3 beers. Just don't pour em like your average sports bar pouring a bud light... filling it over 2-3 times worth with all the foam.

quote:

---

guaranteed that a place with good pizza and good beer will be successful

---

You should front him all the cash then!

1 - college students are poor; theyve got to be able to get drunk for <$15
2 - college students are poor; they'e got to be able to get full for <$5

from there, its a velocity/space issue. how many $20 transactions can you fit in the place on a given night? does it still make sense?

quote:

---

You should front him all the cash then!

---

I'm not looking to get in the restaurant business..

quote:

---

1 - college students are poor; theyve got to be able to get drunk for <$15
2 - college students are poor; they'e got to be able to get full for <$5

---

two places I frequent, as an adult making much more than a college student:
BJ's. Everday until 7 is half price mini pizzas and tuesdays is $2 pints. $4 pizza, 3 beers, is $10. Drink more as necessary.
Rockwell tavern in NW houston. Happy hour everyday until 7. $2-$3 craft beers. get 4, and a $8 burger (one of the best in town), $18.

Both places are still open. There are other people in town besides poor college students that will fill in the gaps.

62, hanrahans point is that there is nothin even close to a sure thing in the restaurant business.

The amount of people willing to pay for high quality pizza is actually quite small. It's basically a commodity product subconsciously for most people. Especially in a demographic like b/cs. Very hard to sell a $20 pizza these days with any volume.

TennAg nailed it.

If you open a bar you should set-up ribbon boards with the beer prices scrolling across them. Adjust your prices throughout the evening, so when one drops it's buy buy buy.

(shrug) worked at a bar I was at in Fort Collins.

^
|
|
|

call it the Exchange.

You'll get the business crowd and frat/sorority crowd for sure.

When did that place close??

Carlos and Charlies on Lake Travis has a pretty cool system of hand signals to order beer from the bar tenders. Painted signs all over the place show you how to order. Combine that w/ Andy's idea, and you'll have a Wall Street bar.

call it 3rd base bar & grill. Last stop before home. Serve reubens, pastrami on rye, etc.

http://thechimes.com/the-chimes/home/

Open up a place that serves Chicago cuisine. Deep dish pizza, italian beef sandwiches, etc. At least it will be a concept that hasn't been done a million times before in every college town in America.

Oh, and make sure you serve plenty of beer and employ plenty of hot college girls in scantily-clad outfits.

quote:

---

call it 3rd base bar & grill. Last stop before home.

---

And then get sued for trademark infringement!

http://www.3rdbasesportsbarandgrill.com

If you were in Austin; I'd say do the male version of Hooters and call it Cocks or something.

Put some strapping lads in Spartan costumes (like 300 the movie) and have them be the waiters; then put Oxygen on the TVs, and watch all the homos, hippies, and middle-aged wannabe cougars in Austin stream into it.

[This message has been edited by SpreadsheetAg (edited 2/7/2012 3:47p).]

Now THAT'S funny

Miss that place, was sad to see it close down over the summer

Old Chicago and Rosati's are two viable Chicago-style chain concepts. Rosati's has the best Chicago style pizza I've eaten outside of Chicago. More of a low-overhead operation, they just do takeout/delivery.

Old Chicago would likely take big bucks to get a franchise. It's a full-scale restaurant, with a bunch of beers on tap. Not as good Chicago pizza, but good.

In Germany I went to a place that had phones on each table and the tables all numbered so if you saw a cute girl at table "Eins" you just rung them up to chat.
We thought it way cool but that could be a bit outdated now.

Wine/Martini Bar?