Send a text

Ever felt like the universe is charging a 3 percent convenience fee on your patience? We get into the real-life chaos of running bars while the front counter gets tiled, the producer’s out, and someone just flipped us off at a three-way stop. From there we dive into what actually speeds up service on a Saturday night and why the placement of an ice machine can make or break your bottom line.

We also get honest about AI—both the weird and the wonderful. A pop-up AI dating cafe in Hell’s Kitchen sparks a debate about synthetic companionship, while the same technology quietly saves us hours: building clean websites overnight, parsing delivery receipts with a phone camera, and syncing inventory and pricing straight into our POS. We talk “vibe coding,” where you describe what you want and let the machine draft the scaffolding, and we square that with the reality of job shifts, regulation, and the urgent need to stay curious instead of getting left behind.

On the business front, we air out the death-by-a-thousand-fees that small operators know too well: card surcharges, “average” utility bills for closed rooms, and hold queues that start when they call you. We share practical tactics to fight back, including using AI to audit six months of statements and flag silent price creep. To balance the heat, we swap dive bar love letters—The Abbey in New Orleans, The Cala in Dillon—and break down what really gives a bar its soul: forgiving light, fair prices, fast hands, and a room that invites strangers to breathe again.

If you geek out on bar design, small business hacks, and the intersection of hospitality and technology, you’re in the right place. Hit play, then tell us your favorite dive bar and the one thing you’d change in a bar layout to make service fly. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s fighting fees, and drop a review so we can keep building better nights together.