Bar Pod
Bars are one of the few businesses that don’t let you lie to yourself for very long. The numbers are real. The feedback is immediate. The mistakes are expensive. Bar Pod is a podcast about what it actually takes to build and run bars—and by extension, any small, creative, high-risk business—without the hype, the shortcuts, or the guru nonsense.
Hosted by brothers Ryan and Chad, Bar Pod is a candid, conversational series about ownership, operations, and the long game of building something that lasts. Ryan handles the day-to-day reality of running multiple bar and hospitality concepts, while Chad brings the perspective of someone balancing bartending, ownership, and family life. Together, they talk through real decisions, real mistakes, and real lessons learned the hard way.
This isn’t a how-to manual and it’s not a highlight reel. It’s an honest look at what works, what doesn’t, and why most good ideas live or die on execution. Episodes explore everything from finances and branding to staffing, burnout, risk tolerance, and knowing when to push—or when to walk away.
Bars are just the lens. The lessons apply to anyone who’s started a business, thought about starting one, bought a building, managed people, taken on risk, or tried to design a life with more freedom and fewer illusions.
Bar Pod is thoughtful, practical, occasionally irreverent, and grounded in experience. If you care about building things in the real world—and doing it without pretending it’s easy—pull up a stool.
Bar Pod
Latest Episodes
Chad has moustache
We sit down for Bar Pod Season 2 Episode 2 and try a slightly softer approach, playing with natural light, dialing back the heat, and still ending up exactly where we always do: laughing at the chaos of running bars and living in Sandusky when ...
Do Bars Help Us Live Longer Or Just Feel Better?
Summer doesn’t ease in around here, it hits like a switch, and season two starts with us trying to catch up. We’re back at Paddle Bar in Sandusky talking about the first real signs of the rush: the weather jump, the boaters rolling back into to...
We Try To Predict The Drink Of The Summer
Sweet 16, a great Maine IPA, and the kind of behind-the-bar honesty you only get when the mics are rolling at a real place with real problems. We’re closing out our season with a rapid-fire check-in on what it takes to run a seasonal bar as the...
Two Co-Hosts, One Crowded Bar, Zero Plan
Episode 15 is a wild one. For the first time ever, we're recording BarPod live from Paddle Bar while it's open — packed house, dog at the bar, people staring at us, the whole deal. And because Chad's down in Hilton Head with the family, we're f...