Chris Kinsel: Hospitality At It's Finest 🍺

On this episode of the Get Down Podcast our guest is Chris Kinsel, managing partner of Downtown Social, New York City. Chris has been a bartender, manager and now owner in nightlife and brings a unique perspective to the show. What really stands out about Chris is the second to none hospitality provided to not only customers, but entertainers, and why that is such an important aspect to their brand and business. We discuss his transition from manger to managing partner, his move to NYC, venue rebrand and how he helped transform Downtown Social to what it is today. Finallu, we dive into what it's like to be a venue owner and understand the many overlooked costs of owning and running a venue and how that effects DJs. We hope you enjoy this behind the scenes look at the nightlife industry from an owners perspective. Let's get into this episode of the get down with Chris Kinsel.

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Downtown Social IG

Transcript

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All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the 137th episode of the Get Down, brought to you by Digital Music Pool. My name is Cream. Gary W here. We have another guest today. And it's someone we have these conversations every single week. So we, it was only right for us to bring it to the podcast. Welcome Chris Kinzel, managing partner, downtown social, among other titles. What's up, Chris. What's going on guys, how are you? Good, man. You know what, this is going to be, I woke up this morning and I'm like, this is gonna be an easy conversation. This is something that we do anyway, all the time. We're probably connected with you most out of every manager or bar owner that we deal with. We like your involvement, obviously. We'll get into why we like your involvement and I think it's gonna be a really good conversation for people to hear. not only your thoughts on the industry and kind of the direction where the industry is going right now, but also to get a little behind the scenes conversation of what we talk about on a weekly anyway. And maybe it'll change people's perspective on how they think they need to get booked, how they need to act at a venue, so on and so forth. Yep, you know, positive or negative, I really enjoy looking forward to that Monday or Tuesday phone call with you guys. Um, we always get something great out of that and, uh, I'm excited to get it on the record today. I think another this is your perspective is going to be great because Gary and I come on here and we just murder venues and venue owners sometimes but because of like, just their lack of involvement or it's been like an ongoing thing on the pot. I know you listen so you hear us go on our mini rants but every time we talk about a positive business owner and someone who runs a venue Chris is generally the person we're talking about and downtown social is generally ha ha ha ha ha He's, it's like one of a few venues that we, when we do talk positively about how things are run, it's generally about downtown social or a handful of other venues we work with. So. You guys are pretty good about keeping it anonymous, so. Applause to you. We try. Ha ha. So we actually met, like, you know, we're all working together here in New York, but we actually met, so you're a Jersey guy that was transplanted down to Charleston, and we met in Charleston through Angelo, right? Is that real, is that right? Yeah, we did. So, they'll make it quick. I was running a college bar in Charleston. I was a junior in college and grew up in Belmar, New Jersey. So, I was friends with a lot of you know, headliner DJs, Porter guys. I worked at Headliner for a while and I saw these like Angelo edits starting to pop up everywhere. And I would play them at the bar. He'd be sending me music. We'd be messaging each other back and forth on Instagram I was like come play a headlining set on a Saturday for me down in Charleston You can stay on my couch. Just get a flight. We'll take care of you never heard him DJ before and He hopped down and we had the conversation afterwards his mixes were great, but I'd never heard him live He could have been awful. So that was a big gamble my part He crushed it He fell in love with Charleston just like I did and then shortly after I believe you guys came down and that's where shook hands for the first time. Yeah, that venue. trips, right? I want to see that. And then you guys got some gigs, you just hopped on and then, yeah. That venue was great. It was like a bar, but like it's, it had like a little, like a little step up in production. So like it made it attractive for somebody like an Angelo to come down at that early on in his, it's it. Right. It had, it did. had the jersey touches is what it was. Hahaha! Yeah, so that venue is, we liked hanging out there. We thought it was like this nice little step up. It reminded us of one of our current venues in Hoboken just with an elevated feel. So that was kind of, that was a, and it was cool to see you behind the bar and interacting with the crowd and doing all the things that you do really well now just as a bartender. And like, you know, creating a show and creating an atmosphere for the, for the crowd there. And it was like kind of eye opening. Like we don't have bartender, I don't deal with many bartenders that do that, you know, and take that next step to make it a good experience. It was fun, I don't get to do it behind the bar too much. I try to do it on the floor as much as I can. I think that's why I get so excited when I get to talk to you guys. I'm like, nice, I'm in it again. And correct me if I'm wrong, that trip was your introduction to 13 step and hair of the dog. I believe so. I think, I think we. met with our partners down south and they connected you to New York. Yeah, we were hanging out at Uptown in Charleston and we ended up meeting Brynn and some of the other partners and kind of just hit it off. Angelo was introducing to us the people, you were introducing us to people and just kind of talking about what we do up here and that was how we started working with Best Bars and 13 Step and Hair of the Dog in New York City. So it's crazy, like that was one of those networking trips. And it was like, let's go to a new city, let's go hang out with Angela, let's go meet some people. And so much came out of that trip. My relationship with Eric at Trio came out of that trip, our relationship with you, our relationship with Best Bars, it's kind of crazy. Like one weekend, how much came out of that, that one trip? Crazy. a little vacation weekend for you guys. Yeah, it was COVID, nothing was opened up by us. We were like, f it, let's just go down. Let's go check out Charleston, why not? Yeah, doing, that weekend didn't feel like work at all. You know, that networking was just easy. It was in the, what we would have been doing on quote unquote vacation anyway, right? We were just hanging out and meeting people anyway. So like, it was just a natural thing. It didn't feel like a work trip. I think that trip made me realize that it's okay to go and do that. And like I went to Charlotte recently and I'm gonna go probably go down to Austin at some point in this year in 2024 to go meet with some of those guys CRG and some of the other DJs. And it's like, yeah, you're losing out on the money for the weekend, but those relationships are so valuable. And you never really know what can happen from that little trip. So super valuable. Alright, so Chris, I want to go ahead. My bad. trouble, like, do we keep our guys in New York and Jersey? Do we let them fly? Do we, you know, Angelo did it, and Angelo's kind of now under neither of us, but he's crushing it. So it's nice to see those guys grow and, you know, get to the Charlestons, get to the Austins, get to the Nashvilles. Yeah, something we talk about trying to move some of our DJs to different markets and you've helped facilitate some of that and that's definitely a goal of many of our DJs is to go play other markets. So any way that we can help facilitate that is a win, you know? All right, so we talked a little bit about how we met. I wanna fast forward. So you left Charleston, you came up to New York because you had an opportunity to become a managing partner at one of the venues, one of the best bar venues. And that's really how we started working together. So you used to work, I'm sorry, you took over a spot called 13th Step. It was one of the venues we were booking for a while. The DJ booth was in a closet. The sound was not very good. Our DJs didn't really want to work there. They just work there because we put them there type of thing. And in a year, you've sort of transformed 13 Step into what is now Downtown Social, which is a place where every one of our DJs want to work. We have upgraded sound, staging, upgraded lighting. We're popping confetti. Like, so much has changed in such a short period. And clearly, it's changed since you've come up here. So talk a little bit about. what your expectations were coming up to New York and sort of how you implemented your vision to create Downtown Social. It's humbling to hear when you put it that way. Disclaimer, it was a team effort. Yes, did those changes happen when I moved up? Yeah, no questions asked. But there was already a management team. There was already an operating partner at the 13 step. And we had full backing from our partners down in Charleston, which we pulled a lot of these elements from. So when I came to New York, I honestly didn't really know what to expect. I was a Jersey guy, but I never, didn't spend time in the city, wasn't too fond of it. One day I had a conversation in Charleston. It's basically like I want to be a partner in this company. And Keith Benjamin, one of our senior operators down south was like, all right, let me think about it. Came back to me a week later and goes, you'll make partner, but you got to move to New York City. And I was like, what the hell is this? Heh. So we came in and we came in, we did some renovations at the 13th step. Like we said, we upgraded our sound system, we put a video wall in. So we had the elements there, but I don't think anyone really knew how to use them, including myself. So it was a learning lesson through that. We had lights installed, but we soon learned that they're not programmed the right way. Or we had a video wall, but we're not using it the right way. We have a DJ booth, but we're not using it the right way. So the first couple months was really spent me looking at the elements and the opportunity we have and how do we just capitalize on it across the board. So it was all new. For me, for the partners and the managers at Downtown Social, it was the 13th step. And just every day figuring out how can this be bigger, better, more fun. You know, I say, I want people to walk in here and just say, what the hell's going on? You know, for New York City, I think it's so crazy sometimes for these big clubs and people expect that. But to walk into a basement bar. Listen to a band playing and then the room blacks out and then you have just strobes and confetti and loud music It's something different Was that the, like, was that kind of the mission statement from the team? I don't know if there was like a mission statement and a, and kind of a goal, a main goal of like where the company wanted to be or where the bar wanted to be. Was that kind of the mission statement? Like we're gonna like, we're going to really lean into this nightlife, like almost like nightclub sort of feel. So this sounds cliche. Our mission statement was to have a fun bar and throw a good party. A lot of that I think was put into my hands when I moved here. The upper management of our company had seen what I'd done at the college bar that you guys were talking about before. They'd seen what I've done at some of our bars down south in Charleston that are part of this company. And you know, applaud to them, they had faith. They got me plane tickets to New York and said, You know, good luck. We have your support. Let us know. Let us know what you need, but we've seen you do this before. Um, yeah, like you said, cream, have at it. And it comes with its hurdles, you know, big city that I didn't spend much time in, um, working with people that I met, you know, the day before, um, yeah. So we just went for it, which was kind of cool. It just, what happened was what New York wanted, you know, our customers came in and. We realized what they wanted more and more every weekend, and we just adapted to that. So you guys are in the, what is that? That's considered the East Village, right? So like, there's really nothing like what you guys offer in that area. And it's such a young, it's been a thriving area of New York City for, you know, young 20-somethings that are moving into the city for the first time. It's shocking that there was nothing offered like that. Because I lived down there from 2009 to 2011, and... like you had cocktail bars, speakeasies, things like that, dive bars that you could walk into, but there was no party, like real party scene that you're gonna walk into, and there's gonna be loud music, dim lights, and you can really, really party. You would have to actually go to a major nightclub for that. So you guys really created something niche in your market. A question I was gonna have before this was, how much... How much like onus did you guys put in on the sound system? Something that Kareem and I talk about all the time that we feel is so important, and I feel like that's something that's missing in so many places. So how important did you and the team feel like the sound was to your success? So when we first opened, we did a full light revamp. The sound actually didn't change too much to start within, I think, a month of opening the back rooms that we have, which is about half of our space. We completely revamped sound. We do live bands as well. So QICs were installed, subs were installed. We flipped a handful of speakers. This is my ignorance to how a V-Works here, but not too much sound was changed. I think it's the way it was utilized. Also, I remember, you know, before you came up, Lloyd, who's one of the other partners that we work with, shout to Lloyd, love him. He also, there was some sound done prior to you getting there. So we had upgraded the sound prior to you getting there. And then, you know, you guys, you came in and just kind of tweaked it for the performance aspect for sure. But in talking to Lloyd, he's like, I know the sound sucks. We need, we need sound. We need sound. We need sound. And me and Gary would always be like, Yeah, you do. It's gonna make a huge difference. And I think that was like the first, that was the first step in taking 13th step to downtown like just from a DJ's perspective and from our perspective as bookers, you know? Once you invest in some sound, it's like, all right, these guys are serious about doing nightlife kind of thing, you know? They're not just a bar that's gonna try to put a DJ on, they're trying to do nightlife, which there's a big difference between those two things. Yeah, you know, little things like putting a monitor in the booth. I know it sounds so small or just knowing how that works or, you know, our bands play and all the speakers on stage turn off. So there's no feedback like those little tiny things. And we learned that, like I said, weekly. And we were just constantly changing for the first six months, specifically for myself, working with Lloyd, who's a senior partner here in New York. He's been great. I'll come to him after the weekend and be like. this needs to be fixed. I don't have the power to do it in our company, but it'll be like, great, I'm writing a check, what do we need to do, who do we need to pay, and if anyone has any questions, tell them to come talk to me. So it's great. like the most calm collected dude ever. I've never seen him like get upset or angry or loud or... I'll come to him and be like, ugh, this happened. And he's like, right, how do we address it? Let's go for it. So, we even need to know that. But no, to recap that for the sound, it was important to us. We knew if it sounded good, if it didn't sound good, we weren't afraid to put money into it. And we went from there, we're still changing. Every week we're texting our AV guys, having them come in, tweak things, and that goes hand in hand with AV as well. I mean, you're only what, 11 months, 12 months now in? We are a year in January. A year in general, wow. It's incredible, like you guys rebranded and were successful immediately. You know, like lying around the block, immediately. How do you think you guys were so successful so fast, or why do you think you were so successful so fast? So we you were talking about before how there's not much of what we do in the East Village There's not much in the East Village period You know you walk down the second Ave on a Thursday Friday night You'll hit us. You'll hit a cocktail bar It's really it. And you know, we have bars that border either side of us and you know, we'll have, we're capacity 200 people in line and these bars to the left and right of us have 15 people in them. So people are hopping in their Ubers and taxis to come to us. We generally don't do a cover charge. Drinks are reasonable. You can have fun and party. You know, it's not, no bar minimums, no real strict dress code. Let's just have people come have a good time. They feel safe and it checks all those boxes. Not for everybody. that's the formula that customers are looking for right now. They're not looking for the $20 cover, I have to wear a dress shirt, no hats, $25 vodka sodas. People, they don't want that right now. And customers are telling the market that they don't want that. And if you're doing that, you're most likely not that successful right now, especially in the state of our economy and how things are going. So I think having that outlook and that... kind of, I don't know, understanding of what your customers really want is a testament to like what you know, what you guys are doing and your understanding of your customer base and the market and all the things that are going to having a successful spot. What do you, just for reference, like what's like a double vodka soda cost? This is how I gauge everything now. What's a double vodka soda cost? a single would be nine a double would be just shy of 18 but all day all day every day you can do five dollar beers we do five dollar seltzers you know on a Saturday night you want to get a bucket of seltzers it's 25 bucks or you can get a cost me because I don't double and it's you know in the mid-20s and you can feel bad and bougie and try to impress the people and they're fine. Yeah. a $13 high noon the other day.$13 for one high noon. I was like, what? I thought they were fucking with me. At one of our venues in Hoboken. Jesus crud, yeah don't call him out. Ha ha ha. Hahaha! Something we discussed that we'll potentially talk about today is the cost of doing business. I know you guys talk specifically a lot about the music industry in these venues. I would like to touch at some point about what the cost of doing business is. People see lines around the block and crazy parties on Fridays and Saturday nights, but they don't realize what goes into it. That $13 high noon helps a lot of these places run. Yeah, for sure. get into it right now. I mean, I think this is a great transition. I think this is the part of the business that most people have no idea about. And they don't understand what it costs to run a place and why things are so expensive right now. So let's jump into it right now. So what are some of the things that the regular person would overlook? You know, to start with payroll, minimum wage in New York City is $15 an hour, and a step above that is what it costs to live in New York City. So these employees that we have...$15 an hour seems high for minimum wage generally, but then on top of what we actually have to pay these people is astronomical. Put 15 security guards, 10 bartenders, two managers on the floor on top of entertainment. It adds up, four guys in the kitchen until 1 AM, five nights a week. That gets overlooked, you know, that's a big number. Rent is a huge number. What cost of product is? We just did a big plumbing project at Downtown Social, you know, that's, you know, in a five digit project, we're gonna replace some air conditioning units soon, like this stuff adds up. You do two or three or four big R&M projects, that's your month in sales, gone. Right. But you have to do those things when you're working in a 100 year old building, it needs attention. Yeah, you know what, we talk about this constantly. We talk about the cost of, we just say, we get pretty general. We get pretty general in saying that our market sometimes struggles with the little things, like the sound and the lighting, and maybe not having a video wall, because ownership needs to invest in so much other stuff. I mean, and then just your rent alone is putting you. far behind many other smaller markets where their rents aren't as high. Let's talk about like a Charleston where I'm sure that a place of this similar size in New York City is like 50 grand, which is 50 grand in Charleston's probably more like five or 10 grand. So like you're talking about completely, completely different. We shit on our market constantly. We do it all the time. Oh, we went to Charleston, it was amazing. Hospitality was great, they had video walls and the sound was great and CO2 machines. And it's like, well, yeah. because that $5,000 a month rent is a lot different than the 50 grand it is in New York City. And we do it constantly. So I'm happy that you're here to shed light a little bit on the specifics of outside of rent, what else is costing so much. you know little things like people occur industry and say great there's dj and these people bought beer two hours ago and open their doors and they're going to close until next friday and that's you know that's not how it works who does your marketing who's your lawyer who does your payroll who does your hr whose you know who works in your corporate offices like these huge things who wants your parties there's ten people right there who don't even work in our building but are on our payroll people don't see that I'll never forget the time that I emailed Lloyd and I'm like, so just give me your accountant's, give me your accountant's information. He's like, accountant? He's like, I do the accounting, huh? I don't have a fucking accountant. Ha ha ha. in a month. us, Gary. We do all those. We have all those people. It's you and me. You have to figure out ways to cut costs where you can in order to invest money into other parts of your business to make your business successful, right? And a lot of small, and you guys aren't a small business, I mean, you own a ton of different venues, but it still needs to happen where you do cut those costs where you can. Yeah. You know, little things like adding a security guard on a Friday night, like that adds up. Let alone adding three, four, or five security guards because business requires it. Yeah. So how? out of your profit, right? Like that's just off the top pretty much. Yeah, but you know it's essential. You know, something happens. huge fight and someone gets really hurt and that gets out into the world, then maybe you don't have lines around the block anymore. And that's $75 or $100 or whatever a security guard costs, it's like, all right, in the grand scheme of things, we should have just paid the cost of the employee kind of thing. a couple hundred bucks. You know, Knock on Wood, I'm proud to say we're a safe space. I walk into bars and clubs and I'm grabbing my girlfriend and I'm putting my hands in my pockets because I don't know if I'm going to walk out of here with my phone or wallet or not. And I've never felt that way in really any of our establishments. I mean, I think that's a, that's a jinx anything. But like in all the time that I've been there, I've never seen one fight ever. And I've been there a lot. a couple of tussles here and there, but generally speaking, we don't see much. Yeah. So we talked about you being a bartender. So how has that transition from bartender to partner given you, has it given you a deeper appreciation of what it takes to run a place? Did you kind of know that already, like what it took to run a venue? In all my time bartending and managing down in Charleston, I was really forward-facing. So everything I did was just customer involvement. Rarely did I metaphorically open that office door. So yes, moving to New York is my appreciation for what happens in the back of the house has grown exponentially. If you knew what you know now, would you still have gotten into it? Yeah, probably more so. It's just tools I'm gaining, you know? It's like my tool chest and I'm just adding a tool every week. What can I learn today? What do I know today that I did not know yesterday? And how can we change it and how can I add a different perspective to it? Little things like how are we doing our schedules? How are we booking? How are we following up with our booking agents? You obviously have a deep passion for the nightlife business, for the bar business. And it shines through, through just the way you communicate with us, we could tell. You know what I mean? But sometimes people change roles in nightlife, like you did, go from bartender to a partner, and sometimes the shine will wear off. And it's like, well, I don't, this isn't going to be for me long term. Do you feel like this is something long term for you? This is gonna be your career for a very long time? This is 110% my career. My goal is to open as many spots as we can, similar to what we have, maybe five times the size with a rooftop. We have such a good team. Keith Benjamin, like I mentioned before, talks a lot about, he's the one who runs Uptown Social and all of our operations in Charleston, South Carolina. Building our bench, it's great to have one or two people at the top, but who's below you? who's gonna take over when you're not there, or you're sick or you're on vacation. And some people could look at it and say, hey, why do you have 10 people on your bench when they could be all-stars running a spot right now? And the answer is because I'm gonna have five all-star teams in a year. And when I can move those 10 people from my bench to now have five huge spots, that's the goal. Definitely, because yeah, you're right. When you're not there, somebody else needs to step up because you do such a great job with, and I'd like to transition into hospitality, you do such a great job with hospitality with not only the patrons, but your entertainment as well. And if that's how you are with your patrons and your entertainment, I'm sure you're amazing with your staff, you know, also. So, yeah. when you leave, it is so, so important to have somebody else to fill that role, right? Because you don't want Downtown Social to feel completely different when Chris Kinzel's not there. Yeah, you know, that's been a big struggle for me because I enjoy it so much. So when I'm there, I wanna be, you know, wanna be that guy engaging with our entertainment. I wanna be that guy really pushing to throw the party. Being able to take a step back and, you know, let some of the other managers and staff come into that role. It's easy to do when I'm not there, right? Because they have no choice. But for me to step back and watch someone else engage with you two, it's like, I have FOMO. So I work with myself every day. I'll have conversations with my managers, you know, before shifts saying, what's your goal today? What can you learn? What can I step back and give to you to take care of tonight that I haven't done previously? Yeah, I think that's the growth of being an owner and being like a business owner, right? And not just not just a DJ, but also a business owner, not just a bartender or a manager, but a business owner is being able to kind of pass your vision and some of your skills on to the next person, and then be able to give them the responsibility and let them do it. And you know, sometimes it's hard to do that. I'm the first one that wants to jump in there as well and be like, well, no, you should do it this way. But I think it's so important in being a leader to kind of let, when you give someone a responsibility, you let them do it, you know? And then you could kind of talk about it afterwards and say, hey, I might've done this here, or hey, you did a great job in this way. I would've never done it that way. I, you know, I love that. I learned something from you. But I think it's really important to let, to let those people go and do, you know, do the job and get the experience. And the more they do it. the better they're gonna get at it. And eventually they're gonna be able to do it almost as well as you can do it. My partner and I, Lloyd, talk about this pretty often. He's giving me the reins when it comes to the party that we're throwing. And there's plenty of times, more often than I'm sure he'll say, that he would have loved to step in and say, whoa, this is not the right choice. But if he didn't let me make that mistake, there'd be no learning opportunity, and I wouldn't grow. And at the end of the day, the customers really don't see any of that. Right. So it's not a big deal, but it's huge for our track and our learning career. Yeah, what you guys do, and it's not just at Downtown, but at all the venues that I've been to that your group owns and runs, your hospitality towards the entertainment is better than any other venue that we work in. And honestly, like, I want to share what you guys do with all the other venues that I work at, because as a DJ, you know, feeling that love... The t-shirts, I'm wearing a t-shirt, it's one of the probably 10 t-shirts you've given me in the last six months. And a sign that just welcomes me. You ask, you know, what the DJs that we send in there want to drink, and you'll set them up with a bucket of high noons or whatever. It's all like little things, but it all adds up to creating an atmosphere and an environment that entertainers want to be in. And when you have an entertainer that wants to be in a venue, they're gonna give you their best. They're gonna do the best job that they can do. They're going to prep a little harder. They're going to promote a little harder. And it just creates this atmosphere of success. And I don't think many people who run venues understand that. And I don't understand why. It's something that goes overlooked. But why is that something that's so important to you and the rest of your team? We talk about this on a weekly basis and I almost think it's funny because I don't feel like we're doing anything. And it's not, and none of this is hard. The answer why it's important to me is I just enjoy it. I enjoy texting the DJ, you know, a couple days before, be like, Hey, just found this song. I love this song. I'd love for you to play this. Or what are you opening to? Who are you bringing? They'll show up. We have, you know, we have a... pretty standard DJ booth, maybe, you know, even below standard can play to some of these bigger clubs. But they come in, there's a little note, it's like a hype note, like, you know, let's effing go, let's crush it tonight. There'll be a shirt or a hat, which we only have so many shirts, so we're starting to like, I can only give you the same shirt so many times. And just making them feel important. You know, they walk up, I'm excited to see them, we'll take care of them, get some drinks for them, maybe we'll take a shot together. Um, that's really it. And it's just being present and communicating what I'm looking for in the night. It's like Kareem said, it's one of the only venues, it is the only venue that we deal with that goes above and beyond in that way. And I feel like the only time we ever hear from ownership about the DJs when something goes wrong, right? There's not enough communication with like, hey, that DJ did a great job, or like, it's like, okay, well, something went wrong, we have to cut the pay for this reason or that reason. And I feel like that's a lot of the communication. That's not the right way to lead a company that is hiring out all of these different positions. Being negative all the time is never great. And then, so when you're doing those things, and then let's say a DJ does have an off night, that Monday conversation's way easier, because you know what, you did your job, you took care of the talent. You made sure they felt at home. And you know that Monday conversation, really if I wasn't happy, you know, Kareem if you're playing and I don't think your set was the best, we'll talk about it and I'll be like, you know, why was this not the best? Can we look at your set? You know, were the BPM super high or super low all night? How did you open? Did you not open hard enough? we have not had that conversation. He's lying. But just analyze, it's analyzing what happened. Not just, oh, we had a crappy night and this DJ sucks and let's not have it back. I'm like, it was pouring rain and you didn't promote your night and you didn't say a word to your DJ. Like, no questions asked, you didn't have a good night. Right, right. I think so many times management or ownership will just go and look at the numbers and just blame it on the entertainment. And there's so many other factors that are involved. Like you said, weather, especially in the last two months being a major one in the New York City area. We had our first dry weekend last weekend. One other thing too that I don't know if, Chris loves the music. He understands the value of the DJ. I don't think a lot, not all the venues and the managers and the people that run these places value the DJ. They look at it like, oh, this guy gets to come here. He gets paid a lot of money or she gets paid a lot of money. They get to drink on the job. Meanwhile, they're getting a manager's salary and they're dealing with drunk people and a bunch of staff that doesn't really care to be there that much. And it's like... I think a lot of times there's like some hate towards the DJ and you can feel that in the communication with the venue sometimes or, oh, well, I could just, if this, if cream doesn't work out, I could just hire another DJ. But then the next weekend, your overall numbers are $10,000 less and then you wanna know why kind of thing, you know? So we always say it all the time, you can't have it both ways. You can't shit on the DJ and say that they're spoiled and they get paid too much money. But then when you have a bad night, blame the DJ. Like. Yep. So I think you value the DJ and understand the music and I think that is in the minority, to be honest. What do you guys think about that? I mean, you would have for a second time. you care about it so much, and you're in every venue you've worked, cares about the DJ. So that's all you know. Whereas Gary and I deal with so many other places that they don't know the difference between Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris. Or like, it's a bad example, but like they don't know the music, they don't care. Chris, my question is, is the music that like Angelo plays is kind of the direction that we went to in downtown social, right? Are you a fan of that? Are you consuming that music pretty regularly or are you a fan of like completely something else different? You just know that that's what works. See, that's enlightening. Like, and at least you go to work and you're not like, well, now we gotta play country music today. No, I mean at 2.30 in the morning I'll come up to Korea and be like, let's get some country edits going. Let's switch it up a little bit. No questions. Look, I hear this music, you know, four days a week, louder than I would like to. And I know every word to every song. But if you ask me what the track idea on any of these songs are, I couldn't tell you. Yeah, I was wondering that because I feel like when I'm dealing with a lot of managers and owners, it's like they request the stuff that they personally like, and it's not the stuff that's going to try that doesn't always translate well in the venue. And I'm like, what are you doing? Like you're requesting this genre that is way off base. But then you're like being adamant about like having it played now, just because you own the place. Like it doesn't make sense, you know? And that's why I was wondering, I'm like, okay, well, maybe Chris is just a big fan, and that's why it just works. No, like you're actually doing your job, you know it's going to work in the room, and that's what you're striving for. We talk about pretty often, the three of us, in our weekly talks. I don't know how to describe a lot of this music, but I know how to describe the feel. And when I'm in my venue and I'm just like, yes, I'm just happy, I'm happy, the party is on, that's the direction I'm going for. And I think that's how we've gotten to a lot of the musical direction that we push a lot of our DJs to go. How do we get to that? Yeah. And you guys have been super helpful in that and figuring out what that genre is. I want to say we've landed on, yeah, because you know, and I know I maybe wasn't easy about it, but if I didn't have that feeling, you guys would know. It's a lot of pressure because when you don't know what I'm looking for, it's a lot of trial and error. But I feel like we're in a good spot. Yeah, it's been fun to sort of curate the rooms with you and not just the front room, because the front room is one thing, right? We're going for this kind of happy up tempo, vocals people know, EDM drops type front room vibe. And we opened the back room. And when we, the week before we opened it, we all have this conversation of like, well, what should the back room be? And we were like, should it be like Deep House? Should it be hip hop? Should it be open format? And we kind of had this conversation. And then we had the first weekend, the DJs kind of play it a certain way. And then we had another conversation. It's like, well, let's tweak it a little this way. Maybe we should do more of this or less of this. And I think having that open conversation made all the difference. And it's been so valuable to get your feedback, to be able to pass it to the DJs. And then once I then go there, I get to implement what we've talked about. And it's been like this really good kind of circle of trust here. Yeah, I've learned a lot through this too. It's gotten to the point that I'll go up to the guys playing. It's, you know, now I'm friends with them and I'll say, this isn't working or here's what we expect tonight or what can the plan be? And it doesn't have to wait till Monday. It can be, you know, at midnight on a Saturday night, when I go talk to this guy and be like, look, I know you see 10 people engaged, but the other 200 people in the room are not. So we need to go a different direction. And they appreciate it because they want to have a good night, right? They want the venue to do well and for us to be happy. Yeah, and I'm sure you're approaching it. is easy. It's just how it's how you have the conversation. It's the approach for sure. Gary, I sorry to cut you off. Go ahead. No, because you know what we have, we do have managers and owners that aren't as personable, which is so strange, you're managing people, they're managing bartenders and bouncers and things like that, and they're like, their approach to most conversations is very harsh. And remember, I remember we talked about this, Chris, months ago, and it was like, just go tell them to change it. Just make the approach easy, you know? Don't be like, this sucks, nobody likes it, like. Because you're hearing that from every drunk white girl anyway. So like, you know, you don't want to hear that from management. You know, you just go out and be like, hey, listen, like, this isn't working out, and this is why, and let's go somewhere else. And the guys will be very, very cool about it. It's when they get yelled at and they feel attacked, and then it's a little bit of a different story. If you can do that. Why, what are you playing right now? Like there's been so many, so many, so many negative, DJs are scarred. DJs are scarred from those negative approaches. I'm scarred from those negative approaches over the years. When I was 18, working at one of the clubs that I was at, just bar backing, Dreams and Nightmares came on. And when I say one of the managers was fuming outside of his ears and yelled at the DJ, and my ignorant 18 was like, I love this song, what is this? So this is cool. It was not the direction they were going. Obviously there was a miscommunication there. But Gary, back to the point where you were saying. We get a little icebreaker to start, so it's not a hard conversation for me to have with our entertainment. DJ comes in, I talk about how we're going to transition from the band to the DJ. I ask them to turn their monitor down, I get my levels from the stage, I'll tap them on the shoulder 10 seconds later when they're ready to kick their monitor. So that rapport between me and the DJ starts before his set even starts. If we realize that... asking for the DJ's number if they've never been in your room, so you could reach out to them and like say, hey, what's up? Or, you know, do you need anything? Or, hey, can you be here at this time? And I think that also goes a long way as well, you know? Yeah, yeah, like we said, it's starting that conversation before the conversation needs to be had. Again, easy stuff. It doesn't take much. So I have a question about your format. We've curated the sound in the front room and. Like would you be willing to change format like if the younger audience decides to like they're going a different route in what they're interested in? You know, in the front, tell me if I'm wrong, we played pretty heavy sing-along house EDM. Big room-ish. And then in the back rooms, there's no restrictions. I say you can go from Dreams of Nightmares to Mariah Carey back and forth 10 times if you want. And what we found actually, and this is kind of new information to you guys, the back room has been staying busier, longer than the front room has. Would I be willing to change at the moment? I'd like where we're at That front room housey vibe is kind of our brand and that is an introduction when people walk down those stairs Like they almost get slapped. It's like I just waited in line for ten minutes and I walk into this room and I'm like, whoa It's a switch turns on them on and if they go into the back room and start singing Christmas music You know in the middle of July great we offer that You know, there aren't we we've talked about this cream in the past where that you know, when we were younger going out like 18 to 22, like every place had two rooms like you had the house room and the hip hop room. Right. So like you'd go take a break and you'd jump between the two. I feel like your back room is an amazing opportunity for your patrons to kind of get a break. Right. Like. because they have so much energy in the front. You have your sing-alongs and you're getting like banged over the head with drops and whatnot. And it's like, okay, well, let me go listen to a couple of hip hop songs or whatever they're playing in the back, you know, and just take a little break from that energy because you can exhaust the crowd. We were just talking about this last week as I did it to a couple of my crowds during Halloween weekend, where you can like just really run them ragged and having that other room for them to go to is so unique and different these days. And it's something that I miss about when I go out to a venue. We know talking about giving customers a break as well. I'll have DJs hit it hard at 11 o'clock and just hammer customers. And I love it, right? It's just like that feeling. But when people have that feeling too, they're not spending a ton of money. You know, when you're so engaged with the DJ, creamy, it's plenty of times. There'll be 45 people riding the rail. 18 inches from your controller and it's impeccable energy and sometimes I need to come to the DJ say hey like let's pump the brakes a little bit I look at the bar and I got five bartenders standing there not making drinks but a full room. Yeah. I mean, I see it sometimes where I'm like, all right, we gotta take a T.O. here and I'll go play like a really quick pop hip hop set, or I'll go play a Bad Bunny track, or I'll just go do some, or I'll play ABBA, or I'll play Dancing Queen, or Michael Jackson, or just something random to kind of like break up the four on the floor banger mentality kind of thing. And I think that Lower East Side, lower New York area, a lot of those other places, the style of music that's getting played is sort of what we're doing in the back room. So it's like super open format, bouncing around, you never really know what you're gonna get. There's no rhyme or reason necessarily to, like you said, Christmas music to hip hop, to Latin, to EDM, like it's just sort of random. But that's how a lot of these younger consumers and customers, that's how they consume music right now. It's like they listen to everything and they have Spotify and they can listen to Travis Scott. and then they can listen to a Vici, and then they can listen to a country song or whatever. And that's how people are consuming music. And I think that's why that format has been successful in the back room as well. You know, it's been so successful to the point that the DJs understand it as well. I had a guy come girl come up the other day. James was playing up front and the girl holds up, you know, a bad bunny on her phone. And James is like, oh, go in the back room. They'll play whatever you want in the back room. he told, he said that in the Discord, I was cracking up. Like send him, send him to the back, send him to the back. But that's good because when people walk in your door, they have those two different vibes. If they're not feeling that EDM vibe in the front, instead of leaving, they're going to the back and they're still spending money in the building. And that's why having that separate room is so valuable because you're not losing customers, you're just giving them two different options, you know? Yeah. It's funny, people will walk back there after being up front for three hours, and they'll look on their face and just like, they're like, what is this? Well, you know, it's been cool to see the transformation of the back room as well, because there's a stage back there. We have dance floor lighting. It's really dark, you know? Like people wanna go dance and hang out in dark spaces. And it's just inviting for people to go party back there. It's like a, it's what a party goer wants. It's loud, it's dark, there's two bars, like. People want to go make decisions. No one's going to see them. They can do what they want. They can have fun, and they're not going to regret any of it. Which was a struggle. We had a hard time getting people back there for a while. I have three bartenders back there that were putting no money in the register for a long time. And we finally dialed in what music should look like in the back. And it's paid off exponentially. You know what, that's such an important lesson here, especially if there's any other managers or owners listening. Like, you need patience. When you're trying something new, you really need patience. It's not going to instantly be packed on the first night of a new party. It's never going to happen. I mean, you guys had it a little bit when you opened Downtown Social. So, yes, there are instances where you do get lucky, but. when you're trying something new so drastically new, like that, like you can't expect success in the first week, two weeks, three weeks even. You just have to stick to it and tweak the areas that can keep that room or keep that idea open and available, right? Because you have to see it through. Because if you don't do it, you just transition back to what you had before, it's just like, well, you're gonna leave money on the table most of the time. Yeah, you know, the first couple months is going to be just trying out a bunch of different things. You know, 99% of it are not going to hit. On top of that, you've got staff behind you who's saying, why isn't this working? Why was the music like this tonight? And it's like, everyone just... that pressure to have that instant success. Yeah, and pressure because a lot of times people think the answer is just a different DJ or different music And if that was the answer overnight, we would have been doing that But it's really coming down to the format and what's the team that we want to put on this table to invest in our nights? But when you guys are having team meetings and obviously you're having goal meetings and things like that, how important is it to talk about long-term success and long-term strategies for your business? Huge, you know, neck. I asked the question because it is such a like, we need to make money right now. So how do you, how do you kind of designate like, all right, these are the short-term goals, this is what we're willing to withstand if we want to try something in comparison to those long-term goals. You know, one of the biggest examples I bring up is, you know, we've been open not even a year yet and we've seen a good amount of success. What happens when the place across the street that's vacant right now opens up. Um, or the pop-up around the block opens up for three months and is crushing it. You know, our competitors can see success just as fast as we have. Um, and. You know, talk about complacency complacency, you know, is our biggest enemy. the minute we say we're good today, or let's just look at next week, we fail and we fall because someone else is working 10 times harder than us to be successful in the long run. Yeah, that's it. It's the only way to look at it. Really. So that you're, before we finish, that work that you're putting in, you know, we have this conversation with almost every one of our guests, right? It's all the work done behind the scenes that people don't see that help create what people do see, right? It's like all the stuff that's happening behind the scenes, all the planning, all the meetings, all the late nights, and all the strategies and ideas. They start coming to fruition and the money starts coming and the success starts coming. And nobody sees all that stuff that you're doing every single day, maybe six months ago or a year ago, that now and today is paying off. So, super important. of conversations I have with people and they're like, so what do you actually do? Or what do you do during the week when you're not working? It's funny to hear that perspective, but that's reality. Like we said before, people see us cranking on Friday and Saturday, and then it's like we go on vacation Monday to Friday. I wish I had a day off, it'd be great. Ha ha ha. Cream doesn't know how to take a day off. That's, that's, that's cream's problem. It's a blessing, but it's also why you guys it's here and now, you know, it speaks volumes. And it's true. So we talked about like your musical, like the music brand, like what people think of when they think downtown social from a music perspective. But like what are you guys doing from like a marketing, branding and social media side to kind of stay relevant? Right? Because like in bar years, right? Like five years and like you're out kind of a thing, right? So the best way really to stay relevant outside of all the other things that we talked about. Right now, which is probably one of the more important things is the marketing, branding, and social media. So what are you guys doing to kind of stay on top of that? And do you have a team that takes care of that? And give us a little insight. We have a team down in Charleston and then we have a team in New York. I play a pretty big part on our team here in New York, specifically at Downtown Social. There's five people on our team, plus myself. I try to just be as present as possible when it comes to our social media. What's going on? I'll have conversations with our other operators that's like, great, you put a post up a month ago. I don't understand it, I don't know what's going on, so how do we make it as easy as possible for customers to understand what's happening in our building? We do a lot of live content. I feel pretty strongly about that. There's not an immediate return on that. It takes up a lot of my time during the night, but when I get texts or your DJs or friends text you guys, like, oh my God, Downtown Social looked electric tonight, or what's going on, my spot's dead. There's some social status there that's important to the success of our business. When people can see on a dead Friday night in New York City that we have a line around the block and I use chaos a lot in our marketing and it's just like what the hell is going on in that building? I need to see this for myself. Yeah, and just going back to the things, organized chaos or unorganized, messaging different people, you know, the girl or guy who had a bad night, taking a step with them outside, giving them some free drink cards, giving them my card, you know, text me next time you're here, I'll take care of you. That's like real boots to the ground stuff that I think people say, you know, it's 10 PM, the night's kicked off, I can sit back and, you know, just be crowd control at this point. Your night's just getting started. How can I make as many customers nights as I can by physically being there for them? Yeah, you're doing something on a nightly basis that I feel like some ownership is doing only on the big days. I think your focus every Friday and Saturday is to make sure every customer can become a repeat customer. And it's something that I am hearing more and more only on SantaCon, Halloween bar crawl, Halloween Saturday night. You know, and I hear, need your best DJ in here tonight. Like... and it's like, I'll pay a couple more dollars on this day. It's like, well, why aren't you just paying a couple more dollars every weekend and just creating the best possible experience you can for your venue every week? And that's the day that maybe the owner shows up and he's not there every Saturday night and he's trying to be involved with the crowd. And it's like, you can't do this five nights a year. You have to do it every Friday and Saturday and it's really what makes the difference. I mean, that's the root of hospitality. Yeah. making people have fun, feel important. Back to the DJs and pay DJs. We don't have an infinite budget, you know? Nobody does. But if we can pay the DJs what they're paying them and they still want to come and they wanna perform and they want me to come up at the end of the night and give them a big hug, I'm like, guys, you crushed it. And I throw you guys in a group chat being like, this is the best that I've ever heard. That is where that excess pay. comes from. The venues that are doing the best are the ones that have either a managing partner or an owner that's involved and care about hospitality. I mean, I'm thinking in my head, I'm not gonna call all the places out, but the venues that have someone who's sort of the face and cares and is interacting with customers on a weekly basis, and everyone associates Downtown Social with Chris, and everyone associates the Ashford with Connor, and so on, Wicked Wolf with Slav, like, when... when you have a face of a venue and you have someone that cares about the customer experience, to me, your venue is gonna be successful. I guarantee you that the places that have that person, the numbers are gonna look better than all the places that don't. And you brought up like, this is simple, it's hospitality, but not a lot of people are doing it, Chris. It's crazy to me. We're in the hospitality industry and no one wants to provide this high-end hospitality experience. It blows my mind. And that's one of the big reasons why I feel like, one of the reasons, but why our industry is sort of on a little bit of a downside right now, and not as many people are going out, because it's like, there is no hospitality in many places. People are just running a business and going about the day to day and they don't care. And I see it all the time in the service, when I go to restaurants, at bars with bartenders who are on their phones and not looking at taking care of customers. It happens. in 75% of the places I'd say. It's crazy to me. You shake your head. You look at it and you shake your head because you know that guy's putting five days in the office. And to not have a team member pay attention to the most important part of our business, it's throwing that all away. Yeah. Those little things like you talked about, like grabbing somebody, giving them their card, pulling them outside, having a quick conversation, people remember that stuff. And when they're like, oh, what should we do tonight? That person's gonna say, oh, we should go to downtown because they had such a great experience the last time. That makes all the difference. It's very simple. And I don't understand why it gets, it's so complicated and diluted, but like give your customers a good time and you know, like take care of them and they're gonna come back. Something I preach to my team, when you have a good customer, everyone has in their head that we need to hone in on this good customer because they're so good to us, which is important. I think what's even more important is being good to the customers who maybe are not the best to us. An example I have is I was standing outside the other month and this couple walked by and they laughed that we had a line and this place sucks. And I grabbed them. I said, hey, guys. Can I come buy you a drink inside real quick? Made them skip the line, brought them on the DJ stage, they had confetti, they've been in every week for the last three months. So that opportunity, you know, that people have a negative connotation of what your business is, that's an opportunity to turn a customer. And for them to now go home and say, I never thought I'd say this, but downtown social was the most fun I've had in New York City. And it's letting go of your ego, of turning around and being like, pfft. you don't know what you're talking about or you know, get the hell out of here. Yeah. It goes a long way, especially in a jaded city like New York. You know? the amount of people who walk out and there's an altercation or something happens and they're coming out heated and I'm standing out there and I'm like, let's talk. How you doing? What happened? You know, I don't know what happened, but I'm here to figure this out. People don't get that because people show up on their high horse about, we're so good and this is our venue and don't mess with us. You know, your doors will be closed in two months if you constantly think like that. It's such a great outlook. Having that positive outlook and being able to flip the customers, I love hearing it. It's hard to do, man. Most people in those situations are defensive and are like, well, F them, like, fuck them. I don't need them as a customer. But I think that's just like the natural reaction. And to be able to have that positive mind state and trying to convert them, it's like such a great opportunity for you and for your venues. So that's super cool to hear. Well, it's getting back to the long-term versus short-term success. We do need those customers. Because if we start losing customers in the short-term, how do we expect to keep them in the long-term? Again, it's putting that ego aside and just understanding what your customer wants and making them feel important. There's also a shelf life for your customers too, right? Like, there's only so many years that you're gonna, that a regular is gonna be going out and being a regular. At some point, they're probably not gonna go out as much, or they're gonna get married and have kids, or they're gonna move away, and like, you have that window of time to have those people as customers. So you need to constantly be building the next regulars, you know? those current regulars need to be talking to the younger generations how positive their experiences so they come back. So their younger cousins come back and then their younger brother comes back and it's a constant cycle and your venue can stay where your venue is for as long as possible. Love it, man. Anything else we haven't talked about or you wanna cover or go over, I feel like we hit a lot today. I'm trying to DJ. I try to DJ the last 10 minutes of every set and it is awful. It is so bad. It's my appreciation for what you guys do has really been brought to the next level. But my goal is to DJ bathroom breaks on a Saturday night and nobody noticed. How nerve wracking is it when you're trying to mix two songs together and you gotta hit like seven different knobs and buttons at the same time? It's a lot. I find myself getting, you know, really focused on what's in the headphones physically and metaphorically, and you forget what's happening in the room. So, like I said, my appreciation for that has grown. We'll get you there. Ha ha ha. and steady. I'll see you Friday, man. Well, I'll have to throw you into the fire. I'll take a little bathroom run. Ha ha. Get a little crate ready for me for the last 10 minutes. Give me some stuff to work with. do that for sure. I love it. Yeah, that's all I got guys like you guys know my appreciation for you is more than I can put into words You know, I feel like my venue my myself has been brought to the next level having you guys a part of our team And I'd like to think vice versa I think we both learned a lot working together in the last year and I'm excited to see what the next year is gonna entail It's gonna be good, we know that much. Yeah, man. It's been nice to have another business owner who kind of gets it and is in our world to have high level conversations, whether it has to do with downtown or get down or not. And so I always appreciate those conversations and I look forward to more of them. We got to do a meetup. Get down at Downtown. Yeah, we do have to do that. We will. Yeah. Get Down Meetup coming early 2024. We gotta figure it out. Yeah, possibly. All right. Appreciate you. appreciate you. Thank you guys for listening, and we'll talk to you guys soon. Peace. guys, peace. See you guys.