Topic: 3000-6000 BTC loan - Hookah Lounge - 9/18/12 Update - page 29. (Read 55352 times)

Here's an idea of which your real money will come from, but first the back story.



When I first moved to Jackson, Tennessee, in 1985, and visited for the first time a bar, I was taken aback by all those who BYOB, paying for the set-ups as they were referred to at the time. They didn't have liquor by the drink back then.

That shared, here's the idea, but really works if the ambiance of Dank's is appealing. Your mixologists serve up fancy mixed drinks, sans the alcohol, at a premium and what the market will bear. The patrons take it from there. (enough said)

And to expand upon the peanut idea, free imported Iranian pistachios, encouraging your guest to toss the spent shells onto the floor.

Here's your chess set:



Here's your nightly entertainment:



Here's your profit:



Anything less is just...

Lone Star Steakhouse here does the peanut shell thing.

Dank has plenty of creative ideas for his establishment.  What he doesn't have is an actual business plan and until you've got a successful business up and running, developing plans for franchising that business is just a distraction.  There's certainly an abundance of Middle Eastern themed shisha lounges, but that may well be because that's the model which attracts a steady clientèle and is most profitable.  That's why researching your target markets is important.  If he's aiming primarily at college students, he needs to know not just what will attract them, but what will discourage them from using it as a place to hang out while making minimum purchases.  Bums on seats don't make money unless those people are buying something and he's going to need to sell a minimum amount of bowls per day just to break even.

Apparently some states don't allow college IDs to be used for the purchase of tobacco products.  You need to think about your age verification process if your state is one of them.

If you're serving 96 drunk college students per day, someone will try. If you're lucky, he'll hide the victim in a hookah instead of throwing it at the stage.

The franchise idea was tossed out there for Dank to get his creative juices a flowin' on having his establishment unique is some way for him to be the franchiser. A few weeks ago I dined at some franchise that's known for having spent peanut shells on the floor (its name eludes me). You want people to walk in and say to themselves, or out loud, "What the fuck! I like this place already." even before they hear the words, "Welcome to Dank's."

~Bruno~

You also don't want to sign a commercial lease until you know every expense related to fitting out the premises to operate your business.  Finding out that the whole place needs rewiring or new plumbing or that the air-conditioning isn't suitable for your business after you've signed the lease is too late.  That's why you need to research all the regulations and codes related to operating your intended business before you contemplate signing a lease on a particular property - the rent may be the least of your expenses, and nobody's going to let you out of a lease just because you grossly under-estimated your build-out expenses.

I know that you don't have the money right now, but either that property is the deal of a lifetime at $3,000 per month so you need to do everything possible to raise the money before someone else snaps it up or there's one or more problems with the property which make it unattractive to other potential tenants and you need to start looking at other properties.  It wouldn't be a bad idea to look at what other properties of a similar size and in similar locations are renting for, especially those which already have commercial food preparation areas and sufficient toilets installed.  The rent will be more expensive, but you don't have the tens of thousands of dollars which those kinds of build-outs require in your start-up budget.

And I still want to know what type of tomatoes you're growing!

Also, have you thought about funding your venture with credit cards?  From everything I've read on places like FatWallet, they seem obscenely easy to obtain in the US and they have the advantage of making funds available to you immediately.  Right now, you're not attracting funding fast enough for this venture to get off the ground this year so you need to start exploring other funding methods.

Phin, there's are already a number of hookah franchise companies in the US.

Here's what one of them lists as the start-up costs for a hookah lounge. 

http://www.luxchateau.com/investment-and-fees.php

Obviously dank's start-up costs wouldn't include a franchise fee and he wouldn't be paying royalties.

You are also going to need a hell of a lot more than 4000BTC to get this off the ground.

You need at least 6 months of operating expenses plus you are going to have a shitload of costs up front.

I wouldn't even think of touching this without 200K in cash sitting in the bank. 

On a side note - If I had 200K sitting in the bank and I wanted to start a business I sure as shit wouldn't start a Hookah lounge.  Why the fuck would you want the hassle of dealing with stupid employees and customers all day?  It is a nightmare.

I would buy a few of those ice/water machines and lease small spaces in a strip mall.  Those things make money like crazy. 

You just lease a few small 1000sqft storefronts next to liquor stores and people walk up and can buy ice/filtered water.

You can hire one guy to run everything for you while you just sit back and count the money.

Dank's Ice

Things have to be done in a certain order.  I have had 4 business leases so far.  In each case you have to have a registered business with the state and business bank account and a DUNS number to even get a lease.  You will have to sign at least a 1 year lease (but most likely a 2-3 year). You will have to put down first and last month's rent, as well as a security deposit.  So if the lease is $3,000 a month you will most likely have to write a check for at least $7500 on the spot before you can start moving in.  Then you have to get your occupancy permit which takes a couple of weeks when the city gets around to it.  You have to have the fire dept come and do an inspection of your emergency exits and fire extinguishers.  All of this costs money.  The City will want money for an alarm permit.  Then you have to get and carry premises liability insurance.  Expect to pay a nice 3 month down payment on that one - in your case most likely around $300 a month with $1200 due as a down payment.  There is also waste disposal.   You will need pest control as well.  You will need a cleaning service.  

All of these things can be done now.  You can call a cleaning service and get a quote.  You can get a quote on a dumpster.  You can get an insurance quote. You can start the business registration process and get a business bank account.  You can then file for your sales tax permit and tax ID number.  

But you will never get a business lease if you don't actually have a registered business.  That takes time.  At least a few months to get your sales and use number as well as your Federal Tax ID number.  I have paid the rush fee before and registered businesses less than a month.  But it costs more.

First rule of business - Double check all of your estimated expenses...then triple them.

I realize this, but I'm not in a huge hurry as I don't have the money to lease the property anyways.  Should get a response tomorrow, if not, I will keep trying.

That's not really true.  logansryche wanted people to donate $350,000 so that he could re-open an old theatre in a town of 9,000 people.  He hadn't even looked at the building, he planned on showing movies on a home theatre system, the building hadn't been inspected for years, there were modern theatres in nearby towns and his best estimate was that the theatre would make $35,000 per year.  The vision he had was not even remotely viable, whereas dank's could be if it's properly done.


What type of tomatoes are you growing?  I just planted Florida Baskets and Romas.  I'm hoping they survive our expected El Nino summer.

If I'd waited a week for an agent to ring me back regarding a commercial property, I'd be pissed off enough to find out who owned the property and contact them directly and make sure I let them know that their property was sitting vacant despite people wanting to lease it.  Mind you, I would probably have gone to the agent's office to get all the information I required regarding the property after the first time they didn't return my call.

You can't sit around and hope people will get back to you in business.  Imagine if you were almost out of stock for your core business and your supplier wasn't returning your calls.

Fuck the tomatoes! Let them vote via Bitcoin.

That'd be cool, I planned on having live performances on the weekends.  I can sell tomatoes and let my customers choose who's worthy and not, the way of the free market.

I guess we'll get to that when we get to it, though.

This forum is a fountain of wisdom.
..and comedy gold.

Fair enough. What do you think about an open mic (mike) night at Dank's? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_mike

Thank you, I will stick with both.

Good point! Just like Bach's violin playing didn't contribute to him being an organist. They're musically mutually exclusive. That said, stick with your hookah lounge idea.

~Bruno~

I don't quite think practicing a harmonica since age 4 is what made Jimi to become the beast he did.  Maybe I'm missing something.

Phinnaeus Gage, thanks for the post, I plan on having a very malleable environment as to appease many types of personalities.

Gelfand, D.E.: Jimi Hendrix: Musician. Infobase Publishing, ISBN 0-7910-9214-3, 2006

And you're right. I was wrong. He wasn't five. He was four.



Also Phinneas's idea is great. If I were young enough to be a student, this would be a place to go to.