I’ve owned Windsor Tap for about three and a half years and The Beer and Now for close to two. A few months ago we got our first sales tax audit from the Illinois Department of Revenue. I want to walk through exactly what happened because when I got that first notice I was genuinely…
Three things some bar owners get wrong about music. Let’s go through all of them. THE LEGAL PART NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR Playing Spotify at your bar is illegal. Playing music from your phone over Bluetooth is illegal. I know plenty of bars that do both of these things every single night. I’m not going…
Let me start with what people think they know about video gaming terminals at bars — and then tell you what’s actually true. THE BASICS — HOW IT WORKS IN ILLINOIS Video gaming is legal in Illinois but not automatic. The state allows it, but your local municipality has to approve it too. Not every…
I’ve mentioned this in almost every article I’ve written. It’s time to write about it directly. When people choose a bar, they tell themselves it’s about the beer selection, the prices, the location. Maybe the TVs. And sure, all of those things matter at some level. But none of them are why people come back….
I work in continuous improvement at a food manufacturing company. For 14 years my job has been to take a data set, figure out what’s working, what isn’t, and what needs to change — and then act on it. I build dashboards. I create triggers. I run 12-week trend analyses. I set center lines and…
I have two commercial leases. I’m also in the process of buying a commercial building. And I’m about to become a landlord. So I’ve seen this from almost every angle now — as a tenant who got caught off guard, as a tenant who locked himself into a long commitment, and as someone about to…
I own two bars and they run on two different point of sale systems. Not by choice — both systems were already in place when I bought each bar. Windsor Tap runs on Toast. The Beer and Now runs on Square. I’ve now used both long enough to have real opinions, and I’ll give you…
Nobody gives you a checklist when you buy a bar. There’s no onboarding packet. No welcome email from the state. You figure it out by making calls, asking questions, and occasionally finding out you missed something important after the fact. This article is the checklist I wish I had. It covers the acquisition process from…
Let me just put that number out there and let it sit for a second. 87 retail cans. Or 16 draft pours. Same $100 in profit. That one calculation changed the entire strategy at The Beer and Now. And I think it’s the single most important piece of math any craft beer bar owner needs…
I want to start with a confession. For the first two years at Windsor, we had no idea who the distributor was for Malört!Malört. Our best seller. The thing we’re known for. We spent two years not knowing who distributed it, buying it through a wholesaler at a markup we didn’t need to pay, and…