Julie Reiner's Letter to a Young Bartender Tales of the Cocktail, 2014

1. SO YOUWANTTO OPEN A BAR…
Dear Young Bartender,
So, you want to own your own bar? Well isn’t that cute. You wantto take
your curly mustacheand your tight pants, your Portland Cocktail Week
tattoo and your bitters collection and make the neighborhood of your
choice the only place to be. Great idea. The world has been waiting for this
decision. But before you take your talents to negronitown, I thoughtI’d
sharewith you a few things you should truly understand beforeyou embark
on the journey of running your own joint.
There are a few things you should be ready to say goodbyeto and a few fun
new pals to say hello to:
Say goodbyeto days off. A new 237 hour work week awaits you, and you’ll
probably still be a few hours short. But don’t be sad, because you can say
hello to days-off’s wacky step sister—nap on your desk…by accident…while
you were on hold with the air-conditioner repairman. And though days off
were fun, they will soon be replaced gamely by five-fucking-quiet-minutes-
alone in the liquor room.
Say goodbyeto your ego. Say hello…to the things that happen in your
women’s bathroom. Your ego will be gone once you realize there’s no one
you can ask to take care of what happened there tonight. Bring a snorkel…
Say goodbyeto cash at the end of the night. You’re no longer in the tip
pool and you get paid after everybody else, but say hello to taking cash out
of your pocketto pay the linen bill, the sales tax, and the COD on your first
6 months of liquor orders
Say goodbyeto your vagina, or your girlfriend’s vagina, or the vagina of the
gorgeous slightly drunk ladies at the bar. Theirs no time for yours, or hers--
and your customers areoff limits……say hello to things that are better than
the sexyou have no time for, like: “this coffee is better than sex”, “that nap

2. was better than sex”, or my personalfavorite: “finding the perfect barback
is better than sex”!!
You will come up for air about a year later.
Other nifty things you should say Hello to:
Say hello to, being on call all the time--might want to get one of those
portable chargers for your phones
Say hello to problem solving. All those problems are yours now, and you
get to see how much accountability your newly minted staff has accepted
when you answer questions like: Is therean on switch for the lights inside
the Dj booth? Do we have morenapkins? And what do we do when the
lemons run out?
Say Hello numbers, hello percentages, hello finance reports, hello payroll,
hello liability insurance, hello neighborhood association meetings, hello to
the jackass landlord who saw a segment on the today show and now wants
to talk aboutseasonalcocktails when your twenty minutes late for a
meeting across town with your attorney.
So you can see my young friend, this is a hard road you’veset out for
yourself. I tell you these things not to discourageyou, but to keep you
appraised of whatyou are getting yourself into. You won’tbe making most
of the drinks now, and since that’s the skill that got mostof us thinking
about opening a bar in the first place I want you to ask yourself a few
questions before you finalize your decision:
 Have you ever managed a busy cocktailbar? Haveyou ever
managed anything? Told people whatto do? Told them when
they need to be where and what they need to do when they
get there?
 Are you a leader? Can you be? Are you sure?
 Have you ever hosted, waited tables, acted as a bouncer,
plunged a toilet, fixed a sound systemon the fly, navigated a
POS systemthat keeps going down on weekend nights?
 Do you have a partner who does the things you can’t?

3.  Can you write a business plan and be partof formulating a
financial forecast?
 Do you have any experience navigating city agencies? DOB,
SLA and DOH are a nightmare. Become familiar with them.
Everything you heard is true and they will make you regret
your ventureevery day.
 Have you been in chargeof hiring staff? Whatsort of training
programwill you have?
 Do you have a lawyer?
 Do you have a good lawyer?
 Do you have an extra 30k in contingency to pay for your lawyer
and the billable hours you did not know you wereracking up?
 What’s a P and L? Can you read one?
 Will your bar have food? Do you have any experience running
a kitchen? Do you know how to do food cost? Do you know
that no one makes money on food? EVER?
 How will you finance your bar?
 Do you have a contract? Is it a good one?
 Why do you have all of the talent and the name and yet you
only have10%? Do you havethat shitty 10% protected in
writing????
If you really want to open your own bar, you need to think about all of
these things. I haveseen too many young bartenders believe their own
hype and get screwed royally going through this process. Justbecause you
have 4000 followers on twitter and 350 people liked your poston Face
Book aboutopening your own bar does not mean that you are equipped to
do so. Do yourself a favor and do every job in the bar beforeyou try to run
your own. Take a business course; takea communications course, learn
about how to do financials and projections. Weall know restaurants and
bars have a very high failure rate, but weall seem to forgetthat when it’s
our place we are thinking about. Go into it well informed and with as much
experience as you can get. Put down the shaker for a minute and learn
about the not so glamorous partof running a bar…thoseare the ones that
will keep you in business! The rest will take care of itself—well you’ll be the
one making sureit takes care of itself…Good luck!

4. Julie Reiner