I know it's blasphemy on here but i don't remember the food at Nick's being all that great. Iconic atmosphere obviously, but I don't remember wanting to eat there all that often.
Lottery Winners
- Thread starter Aloha Hoosier
- Start date
Agreed. I always felt it was just ‘fine’, even for just bar food I get that some people have a fond sentimentality for that place, which I share to some degree, but i don’t think it’s because of the food. (I’ll now run for cover for the incoming assaults which will include “the Strom” or something similar…)
Lol for sure! They should serve that Strom with a diaper
I never ate there. At least, not that I ever remember.
Flame away.
I had a friend that was a bartender at the Irish Lion. Ate some great food there. 90's.
Oh for sure re Irish lion. Way better food. Hell I thought Trojan horse had a much better burger and fries than nick’s. If our crowd went for bar food to watch games we usually just went to the old yogis. It was fine.
Strom, Italian beef, and pizza are the go-tos at Nicks. Everything else is meh.
Yogi's.........too many nights. Could walk there in like 5 mins from a buddy's place. Closed it many, many times.
And a lot of times they lose their friends because the friends get jealous or the winners become arrogant and think they are too good for them. Even when these lottery winners give money to friends and family it can cause bad blood because those who receive the money feel like they owe them. Nobody likes to be in the owing position.
A pool hall is only really viable if you are out in the sticks with a lot of cheap space. In a built-up commercial area, pool tables bring in less cash per square foot than just about anything else you could put there.
That's why you need a poker game in the back and some slots and the numbers under the counter.
And a quiet little dispensary. Just like Bob Ross, and this little tree needs a friend right over here.
Depends on the location, because the answer is "This pub offers what no other bar in the area does."
The way I came out on top all those years ago in Perrysburg was basically getting ahead of the fads. I read that bars in New York and Chicago were diving head first into rye, so I loaded up on rye as soon as Ohio offered it, put together a special classic cocktails drink list, and for a while, we had the only bar in the area you could buy that stuff. When the big cities started dumping mass-produced mixers, I followed suit. We made sour mix every morning from scratch. I got rid of Rose's, and every two weeks, I'd make syrups of reduced Pom and Nellie & Joe's. We got a big ass container and infused vodka with various hot peppers as a base for our Bloody Marys. Every fall, I'd buy a boat load of cherries and bring in the staff for a cherry-pitting party. Then we'd soak them in cambros of brandy and sugar, and serve them all year. No neon-red cherries from us.
It cost more on labor, but in most cases, the ingredients were actually cheaper (lemons and sugar are way cheaper than Dailey's sour mix, for example), and I could actually charge more for a cheaper drink because it was unique, and usually tasted better.
As often happens with success, every time we did one of these things, some bars would start copying us, and we'd lose that edge. So we just kept moving to the next thing. I don't think other bar managers and owners read the industry mags like we did, so once it was happening in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and we found out about it, it was happening with us, too. A lot of times, we even got in on the new fads before bars in Cleveland were even doing it.
Fort Wayne is seriously behind Toledo in bar culture. By at least a decade. So I think if I opened up here, I could recycle some of those things, but ultimately, the trick is to always be pushing the envelope.
Now that you mention it, I have two bars close to me with pool tables. One of them is a hot spot for those pull tabs. The other one seems to be a hot spot for shootings, so I'm not sure what else they offer.
I’d think a stage with a pole would bring in the most cash per square footage, along with attractive and pleasant “staff”.
As Mark said, a poker game and slots. Book sporting events, a percentage of profits to the vice cops. Let’s go!
You're not wrong. My old boss long ago confided in me that the only reason he didn't open a strip club was because there was no way to be sure he could avoid having his name associated with it. The only thing you need to make sure you get rich from a strip club is to be involved enough in the business that you can catch people stealing from you. And if you're not averse to breaking tax laws, it's really easy to fudge your numbers, because a big chunk of that money is coming from the dancers, and they sure as hell don't want to accurately report their earnings.
At least, twenty years ago it was like that. Times may have changed.
A
anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
I am fascinated by these bar discussions.
Regarding your idea of always being out in front, that's surprising to me. I always thought those bars were flashes in the pan and closed after a few years (max ten), while the long-lasting ones were the ones that were just good old drinking establishments-nothing new under the sun, but still had that comfortable ambience that made people want to come back.
In Chicago (and for a while in Austin), I would see some bars open, be the hot spot for a few years, then the hot spot would change, that bar would shut down for a few months and open under a new name, maybe with a different fad, and it could be the new spot again. Is the profit so high in the trendy bar scene that you can do that over and over again at the same locale? Or am I just ignorant of all the bars that can ride the edge of trends for a long time?
A
anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
I love bars but never wanted to own one. My dream was to own a coffee house and/or bookstore. Less sex to be sure, but also less vomit to clean up.
Now my dream is to find an isolated cabin in the mountains and hole up there for a few years and wait for the world to revert back to normal.
I've spent so much time there, I really should just own one.
That how it usually goes?
Our law school friends always talk about retiring to a ranch. Like the Dutton ranch. Problem is we’d have 7 Jamies and no Rips
Yeah, it's gonna have to be viable in my basement.
Now I just need a house with a basement.
I don't have a house with a basement. I live on a flood plain according to the people who tell me I have to have flood insurance for $600 a year.
One day.
No basements are one of the things I hate about fla homes. You lose so much fun space
Pickleball courts man. PickleballThat's because they build their swimming pools outside!
What kind of game was the pool hall in Btown running that was open back 20 years ago? It was on the square, had a huge amount of sq footage, sold bottled beer for like $2, and charged very little for table time.
We'd go there and have 4-5 beers and play pool for a couple hours and it was less than $20/pp. We always wondered WTF it was a front for.
Comfort bars can be nice, too, but they need to balance the tradition with the new. Depending on locale, between 2% and 5% of your regulars die or move away or stop drinking every year, and you won't last long if you don't replace them.
What sort of joint is this hypothetical place? Is it a pub/bar, with food? Or a straight up bar with no kitchen? What sort of Ft Wayne place would be the closest to this vision?
I shudder to think of the "talent" in most strip clubs today.
As @mcmurtry66 said, pretty sure anyone with decent looks and so inclined to be in the biz can make a lot more $$ from the comfort and safety of their home
It's been 7 years ( a buddy waited til 40 to get married for hte first time).
Same as it ever was.
To be fair, I was HAMMERED
So there's that. I could have thought large Marge was hot at that point.
There was a hole in the wall one in North Webster that yrs ago was packed, you had lake people and locals and not much around and it was a pretty safe area and he got in trouble pushing the boundaries.
