Beer bar complexes - Good concept or a lost cause?.

[Butch]

Following on from the "bars and GoGo's thread" I thought it might be an idea to run a topic which addresses the Beer bar complex idea. i'm specifically on about the open air beer bars which share a premises, not 1 or 2 unit self enclosed ones like you see on pothole.

Over the years there has been some very good ones (Simon), some half decent ones (Drinking Street) some really fun ones (Soi 2 area) some which @Nightcrawler could be found drinking in every night (Sunee Plaza) some white elephants (Action Street anyone?), some cheap ones (Pattaya New Plaza), noisy ones (Frog) and now, new ones (Myth night and Las Vegas).

I'm very much of the opinion (personal only) that the real winners are the Landlords. The whole concept of a beer bar is shockingly simple, very basic build costs, stock, equipment, licenses, stools, girls and a cashier and a manager / mamasan . Then all you need are customers. To my untrained and (very amateur eye - never ever run a bar before) the most important factor is going to be a decent location, one which gets a reasonable amount of footfall as the idea seems to lend itself to passing trade and the occasional loyal customer.

That then means if your location isn't a decent one, in order to get customers in, you need a reason to get them to come, and for an open air beer bar, those options are going to be limited.

Not only that, 2 new complexes within walking distance of each other is going to dilute the choice available. I think the future to be in isn't being a beer bar owner, but as a supplier of secondhand / refurbished beer bar equipment...

[Zeb]

1 hour ago, Butch said:

I think the future to be in isn't being a beer bar owner, but as a supplier of secondhand / refurbished beer bar equipment...

Yep - I've seen it said that those who made the most & most 'reliable' money during gold rush days were those who sold the picks, shovels, food, tents booze etc to the hopeful miners.

Not all that much has changed...but add bar fit outs in general etc.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Zeb

[SteveBC]

The most profitable plot in most beer bar complexes i think would be the communal toilet block.....

[Zeb]

37 minutes ago, SteveBC said:

The most profitable plot in most beer bar complexes i think would be the communal toilet block.....

Yep - As they say - we only rent Beer 😋

Owning the land/ buildings in general is a pretty good caper as well - WS, Metro, BR etc etc

[fforest]

Beer Bars do just fine as long as the rents are cheap enough....

And the girls know their GoGo days are long gone along with GoGo pay...

 

I used to see (a while back) signs on beer bars that said hiring girls 2,000, 2,500 a month.....Many beer bars 10-15 years ago had VERY low overhead...

And the walking street GoGos are now offering girls up to 90,000 baht a month....lol

Edited November 10, 2023 by fforest

[fforest]

32 minutes ago, fforest said:

Beer Bars do just fine as long as the rents are cheap enough....

And the girls know their GoGo days are long gone along with GoGo pay...

 

I used to see (a while back) signs on beer bars that said hiring girls 2,000, 2,500 a month.....Many beer bars 10-15 years ago had VERY low overhead...

And the walking street GoGos are now offering girls up to 90,000 baht a month....lol

I forgot to say

90,000 baht a month pay divided by 2,000 baht a month pay is 45.....Or 45 months which = 3.75 years.....

So it would have taken 3.75 years for a beer bar girl from 11-12  years ago earning 2,000 baht a month to earn  90,000 baht in salary....

[Phantom51red]

59 minutes ago, fforest said:

Beer Bars do just fine as long as the rents are cheap enough....

And the girls know their GoGo days are long gone along with GoGo pay...

 

I used to see (a while back) signs on beer bars that said hiring girls 2,000, 2,500 a month.....Many beer bars 10-15 years ago had VERY low overhead...

 

Said many years ago one day it'll get to the stage where it'll be like a strip joint in the uk,I mean the girls won't need to sleep with customers,,well apart from the munters past their sell by date.

Think most of us could see it coming,maybe it's at this stage now,god knows.

The beer bar complexes,ye all good with me,until their having volume competition s,think a few like frog ect just had 1 dj ,that was a good one.

[Butch]

On 11/10/2023 at 9:22 AM, fforest said:

Beer Bars do just fine as long as the rents are cheap enough....

And the girls know their GoGo days are long gone along with GoGo pay...

 

I used to see (a while back) signs on beer bars that said hiring girls 2,000, 2,500 a month.....Many beer bars 10-15 years ago had VERY low overhead...

And the walking street GoGos are now offering girls up to 90,000 baht a month....lol

Yep, when your salary bill is not the biggest outgoing, then things are looking rosy. Basically , let's call it 35k a month for 10 girls plus cashier, with mamasan included. That's a lot of potential income, especially if the girls are nice. I think that back in the halcyon days of Soi 8 when most single unit open air bars had 5-7 girls in them, with a mamasan operating a dual role as a Cashier (or one of the girls already BF'd working the till) then when considering the amount of footfall in that Soi, it was probably fairly easy to turn a profit.

Nowadays, maybe 15 years down the road, I just can't see how a single unit open air beer bar can do anything other than struggle to make a decent profit given ground rents, salaries and the dilution of the numbers.

As for WS, well 90k THB a month is a decent salary even in the UK. Factor in LD's , then it's no wonder the girls can choose to go or not go with customer.

However, a caveat to that is that the higher and more exclusive the costs, the further out of reach it gets for the majority, so effectively girls asking 5-10K THB LT (which is either happening or gonna happen) then they're reducing their customer base. Problem is that they're not exactly selling a premium product, nor are you getting any guarantee of that product being decent value.

Back in the days of 600BF and 1.5K LT for a GoGo girl, you could chance your arm as much as you wished, and if you got a bad one, then it was no big deal. When the price is increased as it is today, by a significant factor, then it represents a much higher risk /reward.

Lastly, I'm also not seeing as many GGG's barfined as I used to, even in the WS big guns. The girl I know who works in Skyfall had one barfine during last April prior to Songkran, and she's one of the better ones. "not many customer want to pay" was her answer.

anyway the above is just my personal opinion, and probably incorrect on a few things.

[Painter]

I wandered through Myth Night last night.

Loads of ladies, of varying ages and sizes 

Floor is all one level, no trip hazards where a bar has relaid their floor 2 inches above the neighbours as in the old made in Thailand site.

One dj for the site, but boy, was it loud in places...

Spoke to a couple of ladies. Lady drinks 160b. They only got 1, as I could go to other air con places and see naked people for a similar price...

Apparently ALL ladies (maybe excluding the cashier) are freelance. They get no salary, only commission on lady drinks/barfine and tips. Barfine were 600b.

At 8pm most bars were devoid of customers, some had 1 or 2, like me talking to an individual lady. A couple had people playing  pool.

By 10pm the numbers of people walking by had increased, but they were mainly ladies or pretend ladies, with the occasional small Chinese group, or pensioners on zimmer frames.

I hope for the bars sake high season brings more punters....

[fforest]

27 minutes ago, Painter said:

I wandered through Myth Night last night.

Loads of ladies, of varying ages and sizes 

Floor is all one level, no trip hazards where a bar has relaid their floor 2 inches above the neighbours as in the old made in Thailand site.

One dj for the site, but boy, was it loud in places...

Spoke to a couple of ladies. Lady drinks 160b. They only got 1, as I could go to other air con places and see naked people for a similar price...

Apparently ALL ladies (maybe excluding the cashier) are freelance. They get no salary, only commission on lady drinks/barfine and tips. Barfine were 600b.

At 8pm most bars were devoid of customers, some had 1 or 2, like me talking to an individual lady. A couple had people playing  pool.

By 10pm the numbers of people walking by had increased, but they were mainly ladies or pretend ladies, with the occasional small Chinese group, or pensioners on zimmer frames.

I hope for the bars sake high season brings more punters....

Thank you for this......

Out of all the posts about MIT, we FINALLY get a lady drink and bar fine price.......I would have taken one for the team to find out the price....One of these days.....

That it has taken so long to get prices, shows people are not very interested in new MIT.....I think the first night Pin-Up opened people were posting prices...

[Butch]

On 11/12/2023 at 3:48 AM, fforest said:

Thank you for this......

Out of all the posts about MIT, we FINALLY get a lady drink and bar fine price.......I would have taken one for the team to find out the price....One of these days.....

That it has taken so long to get prices, shows people are not very interested in new MIT.....I think the first night Pin-Up opened people were posting prices...

It seems that nowadays price sensitivity is more important than ever. That comes as no surprise.

It is also obvious that many expats and more recently, visitors are voting with their feet. It's fair comment to say that a bar selling 39 baht draft is going to be busy, that's a given. Bar next door selling 69 baht draft won't be.

seems that Myth night Bars have a policy of employing non salary girls (freelancers) yet the bar still expects a barfine. My logical brain asks that if the girls is non salaried, then surely she can just leave the bar anytime and meet up with a customer outside if the customer refuses to pay, or negotiates a reduction on the BF.

While I disagree with the "meeting up later" idea to get the girl without paying the BF and then the bar losing out, that's for salaried girls, as the bar has staff overheads to cover. For a non salaried girl working purely commission based, then asking 600baht BF (which was to compensate the bar for loss of potential drink earning for the girl whom they employed) seems a bit "off".

I'd have no issue giving the girl the 600 baht for herself, but if the bar won't pay her, I'd ask why they think they deserve to benefit from the barfine.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Butch

[Stillearly]

3 hours ago, Butch said:

For a non salaried girl working purely commission based, then asking 600baht BF (which was to compensate the bar for loss of potential drink earning for the girl whom they employed) seems a bit "off".

I'd have no issue giving the girl the 600 baht for herself, but if the bar won't pay her, I'd ask why they think they deserve to benefit from the barfine.

A girl I used to see regularly, was a non salaried girl at a bar , but it meant she could turn up when she liked and not at 16:00 like the salaried staff , she would normally be there by 20:00 , Barfine was 500 Baht , but she would get 50% and 50 Baht per drink 

[Glasseye]

On 11/10/2023 at 5:26 PM, Phantom51red said:

Said many years ago one day it'll get to the stage where it'll be like a strip joint in the uk,I mean the girls won't need to sleep with customers,,well apart from the munters past their sell by date.

Think most of us could see it coming,maybe it's at this stage now,god knows.

The beer bar complexes,ye all good with me,until their having volume competition s,think a few like frog ect just had 1 dj ,that was a good one.

 

Thank Dog for porn !

[boydeste]

7 hours ago, Butch said:

It seems that nowadays price sensitivity is more important than ever. That comes as no surprise.

It is also obvious that many expats and more recently, visitors are voting with their feet. It's fair comment to say that a bar selling 39 baht draft is going to be busy, that's a given. Bar next door selling 69 baht draft won't be.

seems that Myth night Bars have a policy of employing non salary girls (freelancers) yet the bar still expects a barfine. My logical brain asks that if the girls is non salaried, then surely she can just leave the bar anytime and meet up with a customer outside if the customer refuses to pay, or negotiates a reduction on the BF.

While I disagree with the "meeting up later" idea to get the girl without paying the BF and then the bar losing out, that's for salaried girls, as the bar has staff overheads to cover. For a non salaried girl working purely commission based, then asking 600baht BF (which was to compensate the bar for loss of potential drink earning for the girl whom they employed) seems a bit "off".

I'd have no issue giving the girl the 600 baht for herself, but if the bar won't pay her, I'd ask why they think they deserve to benefit from the barfine.

It happens everywhere now. Only a couple of nights back a group of us sat outside on the street bars in Bkk. My mate arranged for the little cutie sat on his lap to go LT. She said 2k to her and 300 to the bar/Mobile set up. 

 

[maipenrai]

44 minutes ago, boydeste said:

It happens everywhere now. Only a couple of nights back a group of us sat outside on the street bars in Bkk. My mate arranged for the little cutie sat on his lap to go LT. She said 2k to her and 300 to the bar/Mobile set up. 

 

This is nothing new, I first encountered it years ago and expressed my surprise then - only to be told that if the freelancer is using that bar to work out of, they will still expect a barfine for her even if they are not paying her otherwise. 

[Butch]

4 hours ago, maipenrai said:

This is nothing new, I first encountered it years ago and expressed my surprise then - only to be told that if the freelancer is using that bar to work out of, they will still expect a barfine for her even if they are not paying her otherwise. 

Billabong on LK works to the same premise but with a barfine of 375 baht, girl gets 200 of that,

[fforest]

56 minutes ago, Butch said:

Billabong on LK works to the same premise but with a barfine of 375 baht, girl gets 200 of that,

Billabong...Man, you buy 1 girl a drink there and in the flash of a eye, you have 2-3-4 more girls sitting with you wanting drinks too......And they are all sisters....lol

[forcebwithu]

10 hours ago, Stillearly said:

A girl I used to see regularly, was a non salaried girl at a bar , but it meant she could turn up when she liked and not at 16:00 like the salaried staff , she would normally be there by 20:00 , Barfine was 500 Baht , but she would get 50% and 50 Baht per drink 

I think many of the bars "employing" FL's have a minimum no. of hours the lady has to be at the bar to collect on drink commissions earned.

As for paying a BF for a FL, I'm ok with that the first couple of times with a lady, but if she became a regular I'd make arrangements to meet away from the bar. Something I wouldn't do with a salaried lady.

Where the beer bars are guaranteed to lose my business is if they charge an outlandish price for LD's. In an ideal drinking world, a LD price should be the price of a customer drink plus the LD commission. So if my beer costs me 90B, a LD would be priced at 140B.

Since we drink in an imperfect world I'm willing to stretch that a bit to 150B or even 160B, but the beer bars that charge over that are just taking the piss. It would be different if the bar shared the extra profit on the high LD price with the lady, but they don't so they're screwing both the customer and lady with the high prices.

[Mr. Smooth]

On 11/11/2023 at 7:12 PM, Painter said:

I wandered through Myth Night last night.

Loads of ladies, of varying ages and sizes 

Floor is all one level, no trip hazards where a bar has relaid their floor 2 inches above the neighbours as in the old made in Thailand site.

One dj for the site, but boy, was it loud in places...

Spoke to a couple of ladies. Lady drinks 160b. They only got 1, as I could go to other air con places and see naked people for a similar price...

Apparently ALL ladies (maybe excluding the cashier) are freelance. They get no salary, only commission on lady drinks/barfine and tips. Barfine were 600b.

At 8pm most bars were devoid of customers, some had 1 or 2, like me talking to an individual lady. A couple had people playing  pool.

By 10pm the numbers of people walking by had increased, but they were mainly ladies or pretend ladies, with the occasional small Chinese group, or pensioners on zimmer frames.

I hope for the bars sake high season brings more punters....

An acquaintance of mine I've known for over 20 years, is an owner of one of the new Myth beer bars. She was previously at TT, in maybe the worst location in that entire complex for a bar. When I was last there in June/July, she told me she was going to get one of the new bars in Myth, told me what she was going to pay, while wanting to sell her current bar in TT.

Since the opening, she's sent me several pics of her bar with a decent group of customers and so far, she has no regrets about leaving TT and establishing her new spot in Myth. For sure, with all the walking around traffic in close proximity to her bar, and the music, it makes for a much more lively beer bar than her old one.

Had no idea about the ladies there all being FL'ers, but as I can't imagine them being of the top shelf variety (looks or age wise anyway) to the GG or GC, I would think if they were interested in going with you if making a reasonable offer of 1500 for an ST, they would go for it.

I wish her, and all those bar owners well and hope the high season is a profitable one for them.

[jezza]

i think you will find most bars have nearly all freelancers working there nowadays, the only salaried staff are the cashier and maybe the cleaner/service girl.

check out a party night the f/l are the new type of baloon chasers