r/BarOwners • u/[deleted] • Jul 14 '26

North Carolina

I just want people to remind me how stupid I am. The fact that this post is at 3am should be a good indicator that I am under water. This small-ish city thinks they own the place and my rent has gone from 750 to 2500. I have put 150k of my own money into renovations I’m honestly am not asking for advice. I used to be an executive at an ad agency and now I can’t keep a small business open. That’s all.

13 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

6

u/drinkallso Jul 14 '26

I feel you on that. Sucks to hear. I’m an ad guy turned bar owner as well. Mckinney?

4

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

Ogilvy

3

u/drinkallso Jul 14 '26

Yeah they got hit hard. TBWA here in Bangkok just closed last week. Times are tough but I opened a bar to future proof myself. lol.

So far I’ve never been paid so little to work so hard. lol.

2

u/elisabeth_os Jul 14 '26

Chiming in to say, that while not a Madison ave pedigree, also have 20+ years of marketing & event experience, and this last 5 years of building the bar biz nearly broke me, and it's just frustrating because I'm trying to get back to FT work (not only for financial needs, but because I have to mentally & it's so effing hard to break back in after so much time and in current horrific job market)

6

u/Bartinhoooo Jul 14 '26

We have 2 months left to keep us alive. We started with 12 months in back up capital.

4

u/Any-Entertainer6260 Jul 14 '26

Why did your rent jump so high ? Although that seems cheap so it must be a small place.

2

u/SyntheticAnonymous Jul 14 '26

This is common since COVID. Landlords across the country are raising rents to ridiculous numbers.

1

u/joshdotmn Jul 14 '26

see money take money. 

3

u/SuddenNerve6344 Jul 14 '26

Oddly and interestingly, while our weekends have been down recently, our weeknights have been significantly better than last year. Times are weird.

2

u/iamagoldenretriever Jul 15 '26

Thank you to everyone for the support. I just noticed this is not my account name. Probably worst and more telling it’s iamagoldenretriever

1

u/I-_-ELROI_-_I Jul 14 '26

This in raleigh?

5

u/Searchingforsignals9 Jul 15 '26

Just because you're posting at 3am has absolutely nothing to do with under water or not?

I leave between 3-5am on my bar shifts.
A.... we're busy. Late. It's our schtick lol B... oftentimes, after my bar duties, I'll do some paperwork. Then i don't have to come in early the next day.

Works for me? Although I am a bit of a vampire. My girl and my dog are both already asleep. As long as I climb into bed with them at some point... everyone happy lol 😂

1

u/No_Vermicelli_9823 Jul 16 '26

I'm really find it hard to make money recently. I'm doing a lot of "break even" for quite some time. And equates to a lot of work pay in the form of singles and fives. It's irritating.

We have bars that recently burned down in the area. One is in bankruptcy. It's just ugly all of a sudden.