LOCATION IS THE NAME OF THE GAME

THE BEGINNING
For those of you who want to open your own night club I want to start with the basic things you have to look at and work on before the lease is even signed.
It is said that there are three main things to be concerned with when opening a night club or restaurant. These three things are: Location; Location: and Location. In other words the location is everything. The location that you choose is going to determine everything from what sort of drinks you have to your advertising program. It will determine the type of music the decor and what type of employees you have. The location also determines the physical lay out of the building and unless you build your own building your physical plant will have to be adjusted to.
Since most of my experience is on Bourbon St. in New Orleans I will spend some time explaining the good and bad parts of a Bourbon St location and how this location shapes the nature of the business. Each location is different of course and the things that apply to a Bourbon St location does not necessarily apply to a location that is say in Kalamazoo Michigan .
Rents on Bourbon St had gone through the roof by the turn of the century. It was not unusual for monthly rents to be in the 15 to 20 thousand dollar per month range. I do not know if these rents have stayed at that level after the hurricane Katrina since I have retired since then however this was the range before the storm. If you are familiar with Bourbon St. in New Orleans you will know that the building are build one against the other and that they were build as family residences and were not built for commercial or night club operations. Therefore the buildings are small and are not ideal for use as a night club. The reason they demand high rent is because of Bourbon St and the traffic that is attracted to Bourbon St.
If you asked some one in Kansas to name a club on Bourbon St they would be hard pressed to answer but if you asked the same person where they would go to party when they were in New Orleans they would answer “Bourbon St.” So the property values reflect the fact that “Bourbon St” is a “name brand” it has name recognition build from a century of “branding” and people who come to New Orleans may not know what place they are going to on Bourbon St. but they know they are going to Bourbon St.
The traffic comes to the street and business pay to be in front of that traffic. So the focus when you have a place there is not how to get customers to your location but how to get those customers into your location and meet the competition of all the other places that are trying to do the same.
With a location that is not in a location in say a shoping center in Ohio the club owner would spend a lot of his time and money into advertising and promoting the location.
On Bourbon St. the club owner puts is time and money on getting the costomers who are in front of his club to spend some money with him either by coming into the club or by purchasing something from his club while still on the street. ( unlike most places in the US in New Orleans it is legal to drink while you walk down the street and many if not all of the locations on Bourbon St have “to go stands and cheaper prices if you are going to consume your drinks on the street and not come into the club.)