Otis, I did run one out of a bar… I was young, stupid, and so on… I’ll skip to the end first… I went back a few years after selling out to the owner and just happened to catch him there. He indicated that he’d pretty much retired from running the place because the pizza side brought in enough profit to allow him to keep someone on staff rather than him running it himself. He was a frugal guy, driving a 15 year old truck, but he did make it work…
The local corner bar (St. Louis city is an odd little place… they still have neighborhood convenience stores (before such things existed) and bars inside neighborhoods) had a kitchen that he only opened during softball season (he started a league as a way to get customers in the door and those nights, it was busy). I had a day job, but could reasonably set my own hours. I asked about running a pizza joint out of the kitchen. $5k later, I’m open for business (20qt mixer, food, and some gas lines run). I got the mixer at an auction and was short on funds, so we looked for a pizza oven together. The deal was he’d buy it for me and I’d buy it from him in installments (shut up, you’re right). Well, we ended up with a double-stack of 3x5’ bake ovens (there was a door, so that was the biggest we could get). I was the head chef, delivery driver, manager, owner, etc. He’d handle my cash register duties in a pinch (we had different registers). When I went to make the first payment on the oven, he’d changed his mind and figured he’d like to own it since it was a good “fit” for him. Oh well, no biggie really since he didn’t charge me anything for it, just the repairs to get it up and running (valve replacement and tune up). I was NEVER in the hole, but never really made much either. Mind you, I ran it for MAYBE 8 months.
Downsides… he wouldn’t give me a key to the place. I worked HIS hours, not my own. If he was late, I opened late. If he was too sick to open, I was closed. The second issue was that I didn’t get much business outside of the bar. I doorhung like crazy, but only (shut up folks) 2 blocks in any direction. I think I finally went 4 each direction. I was the delivery driver, so I just couldn’t do much more than I already was doing and still run it by myself. No drinks by me… everything in liquid refreshment came from the bar side (including coke and such). Since soft drinks can be a profit center, you are losing potential right there.
Upsides… if I was out of town (my job would do that to me occasionally), the pizzas got made (but not delivered). Unfortunately, the bar owner decided that he should get paid for making those… still better than being closed.
I couldn’t quit my day job, and my projections on opening a new store by myself just didn’t add up. A regular customer was in IT and I talked to her about my experience in IT and she hooked me up with her recruiter and I got a job making over 40k a year… the rest is history.
As I stated, I always broke even or made a profit, but the rent was like $300/month and labor was free. So… making a couple hundred bucks a month was gravy for a hobby.
The bar was DEAD many nights. He was closed 2 days a week. Friday and Saturday were decent (the place held maybe 50 folks), but most had already eaten. My prices were competitive or lower than most specials ($5 14" cheese back in 1996).
Frankly Otis, you seem to me to be a frugal guy who can live pretty cheap. Since you have the equipment anyway, it’s quite possible for you to do better than I did – a lot better obviously. The big thing I would warn you against is being taken advantage of – setting the joint up and losing your lease or having the owner make it no longer “worth it” for you. Location can solve a lot of issues, and I chose the wrong (but close to where I lived) place. Had I found a better location, with better hours, where I could have brought in a lunch crowd, it’d have worked out much better.
