I GOT PUNCHED… AT MY OWN BAR

Owning bars sounds fun… until someone tries to punch you at your own place.

In this episode of the Sweat Equity Podcast, we’re just kicking back and talking about the absolute chaos that comes with running bars and restaurants. From ridiculous customer moments to stories that make you question humanity, this episode is full of unfiltered bar owner reality.

We dive into:
• The night someone swung on me at my own bar
• The craziest situations you deal with as a bar owner
• Funny moments that only happen in the hospitality industry
• The side of entrepreneurship people never see online

Owning a business isn’t always spreadsheets and strategy… sometimes it’s just pure chaos and hilarious stories.

If you’ve ever worked in a bar, restaurant, or dealt with the public… you’ll feel this one.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Alright, welcome to another episode of the Sweat Equity Podcast for Entrepreneurs. We just kind of want to give you guys an update of what we've been going through and some current events. We are so close to opening Seared that we have been talking about for the better part of this year since we started the podcast, and it looks like we finally have a trading date started and a potential opening, soft opening date for friends and family. So we are really hoping that we're going to be able to stick to that timeline, and there is light at the end of the tunnel after hundreds of thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of stressful days.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Hundreds of tears.

SPEAKER_05 0:46

We are finally here. And you know, it's funny now that we say that because one of the questions that we had an opportunity to do to choose a subject was something about like owning bars and stuff. Does it make you rich or something like that? Or how much money you actually make or something. I'll tell you how much money you don't make when you open a bar or a restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

You spend everything you've made.

SPEAKER_05 1:12

A hundred percent. We uh we definitely have done that. But yeah, we've had a lot of events after the first of the year. We had uh St. Patrick's Day, we've got you know Cinco de Mayo coming up, we've done our vendor fairs and crawfish brawls and things like that, and then like I said, we have seared right around the corner. So we've got a little bit to catch up on and let you know how that stuff kind of went. Um, you guys basically ran St. Patrick's Day. I'll let you guys speak on that. Y'all are there the majority of the time. I missed a day of two days of it. We did a three-day party.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Yeah, so we do a big parking lot party with tents and everything, and DJs and outdoor bars and stuff, and we had a record year at rabbit hole. So all three days we we we did really well, even though there was a lot of wind one day. That was interesting. We had about 20 of us holding down the tent, and for the first time in my life, I've been picked up by a tent. I like came off the ground like this much with the wind. So I felt like Mary Poppins. It was pretty cool. Swept off her feet. But uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:19

I was driving back from Austin and got six miles to the to the gallon in my in my truck because of the wind. Yeah, of the wind.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Yeah, I'm not surprised. But yeah, uh Rabbit Hole, Matt Hatter, and in Fort Worth Ann Richardson had uh St. Patrick's Day parties. It's ours' biggest days of the year. So it's man, people like to party.

SPEAKER_05 2:40

Any reason to drink and party.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Yeah, and we um had two staff members that got sucker punched, and one of them's sitting up here today. Tell us about that, Chris.

SPEAKER_05 2:50

I've never been sucker punched in my whole life. And I honestly, as an adult, I don't think I've been punched too many times at all. I have been punched out in the parking lot one time. Um I was breaking up a fight and got punched, but it really didn't hurt. I think you're adrenaline whenever you, you know, it's kind of like whatever. You expect it, like you expect it to hurt so bad when you see it coming, and then all of a sudden you're like, that's all you got. That's kind of how it was with that. But the guy also punched me in like behind my ear and like just a weird spot, but yeah, yeah, and then her sister, man, she took a pretty good sucker punch too.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

I don't know if you're in it was for breaking up a fight.

SPEAKER_05 3:32

Yeah, breaking up a fight.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

That made me so angry watching it. I was like, just calm down, and then someone showed me the video, I was like, oh, I'm glad I was not there.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

To be fair, we're a pretty calm bar. Like we don't have fights and stuff. So to sit here and say that nonchalantly is actually not doing ourselves justice because we're a very calm bar. People like to come to us because it's not a big party crowd bar. Um people obviously like to have fun, but we don't have a lot of sucker punching going on. No.

SPEAKER_05 4:00

Well, and you know, I was a door guy for years too, and what I what I've learned about that is and you know, most people don't really want to fight in the first place. That you know, they really just don't. They want to run their mouth. And so when somebody comes up that they know is an employee and is trying to end the situation, normally they use that as an excuse to back off, and you know, it's kind of like that, hold me back, hold me back. You know, they're grabbing your hand, hold me back, you know, that kind of deal. Because they don't really want to fight, and then you have just like the idiots that sucker punch me, you know, he just I mean, no telling how drunk he was, but I think at that point he just obviously didn't care. Um I don't know, I think it was a very silly reason to sucker punch someone, but you know, what can you do? I don't exactly know what happened with your sister, something about somebody wanting to close the bathroom door, but there was a line or something. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

I just think there was a girl that wanted her privacy in there, so Texas made it happen. So she had other people stand outside the bathroom door and cheated too. But then a minute and a half later, when nobody was coming out yet, she thought, well, what is going on? And she opened the door, and the two girls were already fist fighting. So I don't know why they started fighting, but then Texas jumped in to try to break it up, and then they both started hitting Texas. And you you know how when a fight happens in a bar, all of a sudden it's like everybody swarms, and people have video cameras and everything going on, and you know, and so then I looked over and I when I saw a few people standing there and one of them being Nick, I was like, all right, something's going on. So I went over there and it was right when Texas was running out, and her hair was so disheveled and she was hot, man. She was so hot, and I was like, okay, this isn't good. And I was like, let's go to the office.

SPEAKER_05 6:00

And didn't Texas like used to wrestle or something like that, or power lift or something?

SPEAKER_03 6:04

She did powerlifting, she did wrestling. She took, yeah, she was like, she probably kind of think I'd want to fight.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

I wouldn't want to mess with her. Me neither.

SPEAKER_05 6:11

Yeah, you probably wouldn't want to fight her. She she looks like a strong chick.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:14

She's got a good base on her.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

She can handle her own.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Come here. You're getting the suit.

SPEAKER_05 6:20

I don't think, you know, I mean, I don't think any one of them girls would have wanted to go one-on-one with her. Um, and the guy that sucker punched me, in all honesty, it's the funny stick. It was one of those things I I kind of saw it coming at the last minute. And you know how people will swing and then they kind of move back? Well, in his movement back, Juan had already hit him twice. Um he like hit me, and then before he even knew what's going on, because he thought he was gonna step back and blow up and fight, by that point he'd already been hit two or three times. And it was just it was one of those things, like I I think everybody saw it coming, but didn't expect it in a way. Just like I said, most people are whether they want to mouth or whatever, they ultimately end up listening to whoever is the employee there, whether it be a door guy, a bar back, a manager, an owner, or whatever it be. And I wasn't up there like, I'm the owner, you need to move. You know, I literally just told him I work here. You know, hey, you don't belong behind the DJ. That was the whole premise. There was a reason for that. The guy was behind the DJ booth, would not leave the DJ booth.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

He was talking about the DJ's equipment. Yes, he was grabbing the mic, uh, he was not being paid to DJ. I had already asked him like 10 minutes before to stop. And I guess we had and we had people leaving because of it, because he would get on the microphone and yell real loud.

SPEAKER_05 7:49

We probably should have when he tried to walk, you know, one he just kept yelling and cussing at me, which was completely uncalled for. But then when he was trying to come out from around the booth, finally, all of the wires were tangled up on his boots. And I'm like, dude, like watch what you're doing. And Juwan heard me. I even said, dude, you can finish your beer and just go on about your knife. Like, I'm not, or you can continue running your mouth and you can get the F out of here, you know, and then he chose to punch me. So then he got escorted out, and then we'll just leave it at that.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

And I mean, he could barely get up. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he broke something in his leg. It was bad.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

Man, I'll say honestly, my hand has not been the same either since that night. I mean, literally, I mean, it it does not feel right. But it's a great weekend.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Unfortunately, the two people that were sucker punched were staff members. So maybe that's a fortunate thing. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 8:52

And you know, in 12, you know, 12, almost 13 years, I've never had anything of this of that happen. I mean, even in my whole two decades of a bar business, I've never been in an altercation like that. Just because, like I said, most people just listen and go on about their day, you know, but you know, it's unfortunate.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

But all in all agree, St. Patrick's Day. It was a good day. Yeah, it was a great St. Patrick's Day.

SPEAKER_05 9:18

It was a lot of fun. Um, everybody seemed to have a really great time. Yep. The wind was kind of a buzzkill, but you know, like y'all said, kind of makes you wonder, you know, what if, you know, if that wouldn't have been the case. And it's kind of the same thing last year. We got stormed on, but we always make the best of it and and whatnot. So um, but moving on, like we were talking about seared at the very beginning, we've got a lot of exciting things coming about coming there. We're having the floors finished today. Yes, um, we all went and saw it yesterday. We've got the majority, I mean, I would say, what do you think? 90% done, 95% done? What would you give that on the as far as the build-out goes? I'd say about 95%.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

I'll say 85% solely because the floor has so much to do with it.

SPEAKER_05 10:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Uh button. We're we're so close. Yeah, we're we're there though.

SPEAKER_05 10:05

I can't, I'll be honest with you, I can't wait to see the floor done. Me either. Yeah, it's gonna be gonna be really cool. Are you participating in Seared anyway? I know this is probably a question I should already know, but are you are you gonna be admin? Are you gonna be doing it?

SPEAKER_03 10:19

I'm sure I'll be doing admin because I do all the locations. Other than that, I we've never talked about it.

SPEAKER_05 10:23

We're hiring hostess.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

Okay, I'll uh see if I can find somebody. I um yeah, we haven't talked about Seared, so I don't know exactly what my role will be.

SPEAKER_05 10:34

I got you. Yeah, we're um really excited for our chef Joshua to get into the kitchen and start whipping up some stuff. I think we have a what's scheduled to do a food test here in the next week or so, which is really cool. We got all of our kitchen equipment in, which was really exciting, really expensive, but really exciting, and then we just ordered our tables and chairs and all that stuff. So moving quite moving along quite quite nicely, and then uh I don't know, have we talked about the expansion that we're sitting in yet? We did, okay, so welcome back to the expansion. Um yeah, so what other we got Cinco de Mayo coming up, our grand opening coming up, a golf tournament for one of our bars in a way, um, which will we'll end up hosting a hundred, what, 150? 100 and 150 people.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah, probably about 150 for the after party for for Woody's.

SPEAKER_05 11:32

Yeah, that'll be fun. Um what else you got? We got coming up.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Um we're gonna start our golf tournaments planning for that.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

We do a golf tournament in October every year, October, November ish, the for our charity. So that's coming up soon. Yeah, I think our biggest focus is just Seared, getting everything started and yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:55

So you guys look for the stuff online. If you're not already following our social media, whether it be Rabbit Hole or Seared or Mad Hatter, we'll definitely be posting on that and keeping people up to date. I'm really excited for the friends and family. I'm kind of nervous about it, but I'm also really excited about it. And Joan and I were talking about this the other day, how important it is to have people in there that are going to give us their honest opinion and not just say, mmm, that was delicious, and then walk out and go, that was a trash. You know, so I'm excited to see how all of our hard work has paid off. I don't have any doubts on in it, to be honest with you. I'm just excited to see how it pays off because I I have this vision and you know, if you've ever you've worked in a restaurant and you work doubles in restaurants, and so this is kind of how my brain works in a in a little bit of way, and maybe you guys can follow along on this. But when you work a double and you work that lunch shift, and you know, somewhere uh like a boomer jacks, especially where there's windows everywhere, it's bright in there, everybody's kind of moving around, and then you have that dead period from you know two to four or five o'clock, and it's almost like a movie scene, and it happens so quickly that the the sun goes down and then the lights get dimmed a little bit, and then all of a sudden it's just total chaos in the restaurant for three to four hours at night, right? In in my vision, that's how I already envision Sear being is I in I don't know about y'all, but in my mind, I can already see an active Friday, Saturday night table set, people running around, people eating. I can almost hear the noises in my head because I worked in that environment for so long. To me, I've already got this really incredible vision of what it's gonna be like full on, packed house, people up front waiting, the caught, you know, you just hear the conversations in the background and off to the side, you know, as a waiter as you're walking through and you're navigating and you know, everybody's hey, you know, this type deal. I don't know about y'all, but that's my vision, and I I already see it being we've got so much hype around it that I can't tell you people at the gym, people, you know, our landlords always messaging me, hey, had people asking about it today. I had I saw somebody at the gym that was asking me about it two days ago, and you know, I can't go one or two days without somebody asking me about it and what's going on with it. So I'm extremely excited about it, and I think that one of the main reasons that we all came together on this uh is that we were all able to see that ultimate vision at the end of the tunnel and bring that bring that vision to life. It's pretty cool to be able to do that, and you guys have had a an extremely big hand in that.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

Yeah, for sure. It's it's it's almost weird that this part of it's almost over, you know what I mean? Because it's been our life for a year. Yeah. Yeah, so it'll be I think we're all a little nervous, we're all really excited, we're all gung-ho about it and pumped and and and just like when the other just like when the other pubs open, you're like, man, it's uh it's here.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

I'm like, you you know what you know you know what to expect, but sometimes you don't know. And you're like, all right, but if you worked in a restaurant for, like, like I said, you automatically just hear the forks, the knives, the people talking, the chip machine that prints the entire time. That's that that's the one of the things keeping you gonna you're gonna hear, like, what is that noise? It's just constant drinks coming through. Like, you know, it's just one of those fun, it's like it's almost fun in a lot. It's a lot, it's almost just fun to hear. I love the chaos.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

I think too.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

It goes by quick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Oh, so I don't think anybody in the service industry doesn't love chaos. Like, I don't feel I feel like if you dislike chaos, you can't really manage the street. There are a lot of days of chaos. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:56

And like you said, it goes by so fast. You'll be like, oh man, when's this dinner rush hitting? Then all of a sudden a line starts, tables are being set, then there's a wait, and then all of a sudden all four of your tables are set. And at that point, you're just you know focused in on what you're doing, and then you look up, like I said, at that point it's almost like a a time lapse where the the sun has kind of gone down, the lights have come up a little bit or been dim, whichever kind of atmosphere you're in, and then it's just total chaos for two to three hours, and then all of a sudden it's like, man, who's first cut? You know what I mean? And it's uh to me, I actually loved waiting tables. Um I I say loved. I really enjoyed it. I really, it's nothing I want to do for my the rest of my life by any means, but I actually really, really, really enjoyed waiting tables because I was really good at it. I could handle, you know, eight, nine, ten tables at a time efficiently. Um, you know, I got to where if I had a any more than a 10 top, if it was 10 or less, I would memorize everybody's order. And that's already impressive to customers when you can do that. Uh, it's not when you mess it up. Right. But um were you did you memorize orders or did you just write them down?

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah, other times I did forget though. So when it got to like eight or more, like, all right, I'm gonna write this down because I know me.

SPEAKER_05 17:18

But before that, it's like did y'all have a little trip whenever you did forget somebody's order? Like if you had, like you said, eight or nine people at a table and then you forgot, and then all of a sudden you've got orders in and you only got six or seven there, so you're missing one or two. Did y'all have a trick to do that?

SPEAKER_00 17:33

No, I mean uh yours.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

I actually I'm sure you had one.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

I just didn't just tell them, like, hey, I actually set it on the wrong table, but I got to put some more for you right quick.

SPEAKER_05 17:41

So it was the weirdest thing somebody taught me this year whenever I was waiting tables. But grab a menu and look down the menu, and whatever they ordered will jump right out of it. No, it triggers. It jumps right out at you as if they just said it all over again. Yeah. You just go through that menu and you go and you go, there it is.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Because your brain's registered and it's just your memory or whatever that's not remembering it. So when you see it, it triggers it.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Seared is so much easier too, because you don't have like look through a whole menu or something.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Or medium well or medium rare.

SPEAKER_05 18:09

Yeah. So we've explained a little bit uh in the past about what our concept is with Seared, and it's basically a semi-fixed uh steakhouse to where you have limited options. You're basically your biggest decision is gonna be how you want your steak cooked and what table sides do you want for the most part, and then we're gonna take care of the rest. Obviously, if you want cocktails or something like that, that's gonna be your decision. But um, we're trying to keep it as simple as possible, that way it limits the one amount of disruption, and and we can flow the restaurant a lot faster because you're not gonna sit there for 30 minutes and look at a menu, wondering what you're gonna have. And what I've found out a lot of people, especially big time foodies like my girlfriend, she anywhere we go, she has Googled the menu two days before it because she wants to know what I mean. When we get there, she already knows what mainly what dessert she's having. But um, yeah, it's just been a wild ride and like Juwan said, it's like it's so or you just said it was kind of crazy that we're just you know we're almost to that point because in other instances, like even dating back to Matt Hatter Fort Worth or Rabbit Hole or Richardson, whatever it was, it was like the second we had the green light to go, it was bam, less open. And typically it was a especially for this in Rabbit Hole, it was like five o'clock in the afternoon. It was like we got our last permit and it was bam, put a bartender behind it, put on Facebook that we're open and less roll. This we have to be a little bit more strategic about.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Yeah, yeah, because it's our it's our first uh dance with reservations, too.

SPEAKER_05 19:45

So we have stuff that we're learning along the way. We've got a lot to learn for sure, still, and it's gonna be a big, big learning experience. And um, to me, I don't know about y'all, but I wonder is this gonna turn into another seared down the road? Is this gonna be such a hit that we're gonna put one in Arlington or Dallas or South Fort Worth or something like that? Um, I think it definitely has potential too, and I say that just because, especially with the Fort Worth, Arlington area, there's nothing like it. There's not a concept that that mirrors what we're trying to do, which I think is really cool.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Um I often think about like I wonder, because you know, there's certain places in town that a lot of like celebrities will go to when they come into town, and it's not that like that's a huge deal to me, but obviously it's definitely a big bonus, right? So like we always have Billy Bob Thornton and people in town core, a lot of uh we have a great director, producer here or whatever that that films a lot of TV shows like Landman and Lioness and everything. So you have a lot of those actors and stuff, and they're eating at all the restaurants all over town, and they will talk about their favorite ones and stuff. So I always wonder are we gonna end up being a place that people you know seek out and want to come to that's not just your regular everyday person? Which they're ever regular everyday people, but it's still kind of cool to have pictures of them at your spot.

SPEAKER_05 21:04

I think it's also important to talk about because we are an entrepreneur-driven podcast, and what we've always said that we wanted to do is talk about the real nitty-gritty of what we're doing as as vibrantly and as happy as we talk about it. It has been a bit of a nightmare at times over the last year. I mean, because we're over a year into this now. We signed the lease, you know, a year ago, a car ran through or ran through the front of the building two days after that. Um, then we had another car go through it, and we've just been a hang-up after hang up after hang up. Um I think I don't want to bash anyone, but I think that our build-out process has been drunk out a little bit longer than it should have been. Is that the nicest way to put it? Maybe?

SPEAKER_02 22:01

I I mean I think I think with any construction process and build out, yeah, we expected shorter and we expected less. And you know, and maybe that's a lesson on us too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:12

We missed the mark by like eight months. And and a lot of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

SPEAKER_04 22:16

Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

SPEAKER_05 22:18

And that's the thing too, is you know, that I never want to discount is, you know, for people that do want to get into the bar industry or the bar restaurant industry or either one of them solely, um, it is so important to have that capital lined up and in place and you know, double whatever you think, double to triple whatever you think it's gonna be. If you think that if they quote you$100,000, you better have$300 in your bank account because if not, you're you're you're gonna fail. It's not gonna open.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

And you have to be prepared, you know, where we could have what would have done ourselves better is if, you know, you have to be prepared for something to go wrong at your other spots too.

SPEAKER_05 23:00

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Like rabbit hole, the plumbing decides to go out right in the middle of the build-out, you know, and when you're changing the entire plumbing underneath that's copper or whatever it was before, and then completely changing it, it's not a cheap project, it's very expensive. So you know, if that costs around$35,000, that's a big part of what could be going into the new spot. So it's you, it's yeah, capital is so important.

SPEAKER_05 23:25

We spent about$50,000. We don't add up, you know, the the initial plumbing, and then you think about what it cost us to rent the porta potties, all the toilet paper that we're buying, and more importantly, the business that it cost us. Yeah, I mean, it costs us a lot of business.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

When you don't have a working bathroom right there and they have to go outside, even though we have cleaned the porta potties twice a week and they were actually nicer porta-potties have ever any use. So but it's still people, I mean, I wouldn't if I had to make a decision that day, are we gonna either go to Rabbit Hole or are we gonna go to Mad Hatter? I'd rather go to the one with a working bathroom.

SPEAKER_05 23:56

For sure. So yeah, yeah. So there are a lot of ups and downs about it, but ultimately at the end of the day, I think it's very cool that we're bringing our vision to life and you know, something that we all sat down and talked about over a year ago and decided that it was something we wanted to do. And we've done a lot of research, we've done, you know, countless hours of work and whiteboarding and deciding on what it's gonna be and how or how it's gonna be and how it's gonna be ran. And and a lot of time on the menu, you know, the staffing, that all the way down to the you know, the the uniform and all of that stuff. It this isn't a project that can be just thrown together like a small pub can be. Right. Um, and I think that's the big difference. And kind of the scary thing at that, too, you know. So but I think that's really it um that I have. I think we just wanted to catch you up on um current events and let you guys know where we were at on Sear, because I know a lot of people have been asking and wondering why it hasn't opened yet. I don't really know that we have a one specific reason that we can say, oh, it's been that. But again, like KP said, make sure to expect delays, make sure to expect, you know, tons more money than you really think about. You know, there are you know ways to negotiate free rent for a while, but you know, that that runs out very quickly. Um, then you have opportunities that maybe you're taking over a lease that they don't necessarily allow that, and that's where we got into. I think we paid$85,000 in rent in Richardson before we ever even sold a beer. So things like that that you don't expect is, you know, again, that money adds up very, very quickly. When you're doing a construction build-out, you're writing, you know,$10,000,$20,000 checks every week, every week and a half. Um, I think I looked the other day and just in this last two months we've spent almost$90,000, and then we wrote, you know, another over$20,000 in the last five days. So it adds up very quickly, but you know, I think that that's just a part of it. And, you know, scared money don't make money, as they say. So, you know. If you guys got any questions or comments, we hope you drop them down and we will do our best to answer them and get back to you. Thanks for listening to another episode. Until next time.