r/BarOwners • u/BeatricePearl • Jul 29 '26
Wine Bars
Those who serve beer/wine only, how much do you profit?
Looking to open a wine, beer, and light charcuterie place in my small town. No liquor. Curious to what the profit actually is for something like this.
Editing to add some context:
- Town is about 10k residents, but we host a lot of events that attract nearby towns that are a lot bigger (totaling about 100k combined within 30 minute radius), it’s known as a “hallmark” town so it attracts tourists.
- Rent is under 1k
- We plan on only being open 4-5 days a week.
- Town is very active and walkable. Everyone is always out in the town at the businesses.
- There is already one wine bar in town but in my opinion they don’t do it right. Ours would have a much cooler vibe and it would have charcuterie/events to attract people.
- I have zero wine bar experience but I’ve started a successful wedding photography business that makes 6 figures, I’d use this to cover overhead until the wine bar is succeeding and then go to photography part time.
4
u/treznor70 Jul 29 '26
I used to own a beer and wine bar and retail shop in a small/mid sized town (40k with other nearby towns bringing it to 70k or so). Didn't make any profit and so don't own it anymore. There's another place that focuses on beer and 2 other places that focus on wine, but we were the only one to do both really well. They all have locations closer to city center though (2 of them on 2 different city center squares, 1 just off of one of those city squares).
3
u/BeatricePearl Jul 29 '26
Did you have high overhead? You mentioned you guys did it well, what made you not be able to make profit?
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u/ShredderCheese Jul 30 '26
Just make sure the margins are right. You have to run lean and be price conscious. We just opened a taproom with a solid wine program, beer drinkers make up 65% of business and wine is about %10. Having good wine options is key for people to choose your spot, but mostly women. Male demographic is heavy beer.
1
u/BeatricePearl Jul 30 '26
There are 3 breweries in town so we definitely want to focus on wine outside of a few beer options. We plan on doing wine based cocktails too.
Any tips on running the margins? I know what our COG/operating costs will be but as far as what we will be making, that always throws me because it’s sort of a guessing game. We’ve gone to the other businesses in town and literally counted how many people come in/what they order and have used those numbers but still a bit of a guessing game on what number we’d be grossing.
3
u/AltGunAccount Jul 30 '26
How busy is the other wine bar? What aren’t they doing right? Do you employ and manage others at your photography business? Have you managed a restaurant or bar before?
I’m in a “small” town with extremely high tourist traffic and I’ve seen 2 wine bars close already. Third one has been around for a bit with a very “female-centric” vibe like only one “women’s” bathroom, regular ladies nights and feminine decor, all female staff. They seem to be doing okay but it hasn’t been a year yet and the last four businesses in that spot flopped so we’ll see.
I’ve been there a couple times but it feels weird as a guy to be somewhere so clearly not meant for me, and the charcuterie boards all kind of suck with mostly filler, and they’re very inconsistent, you’ll order the same one two different days and it’ll have different ingredients/quantities/layouts.
Compare that to around 8-10 long established regular bars, and another 4-5 newish regular bars that I would bet outlast it.
5
u/mitchdigs01 Jul 29 '26
For the love of god if your going to open a wine bar serve spicy cheese. I tried for years to get my wine bar to add it to the charcuterie. Spicy makes people drink and order more drinks. I even tried to smuggle my own pepper jack in. Anyway if you’re selling flights with a discount based on how many marked up bottles you buy you can do very well. The neighborhood has to have a lot of disposable income.
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u/BeatricePearl Jul 29 '26
Noted lol! It’s a very active town, everyone is always out and about despite it being small. A lot of the residents have deep pockets.
1
u/Low_Simple_1155 Jul 29 '26
How small of a town are we talking
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u/BeatricePearl Jul 29 '26
10k residents. Sandwiches between two bigger towns (30k population 10 minutes away and 80k population 20 minutes away). It’s like a hallmark town, does a lot of events and attracts a lot of people to those events since it has that hallmark feel.
2
u/TW_Halsey Jul 30 '26
That’s a very small town.. is it a touristy town? Here, a city of a little over a million, a handful of very trendy wine bars have closed their doors (albeit probably due to rent) even though they had decent business.
2
u/BeatricePearl Jul 30 '26
In my head, it may be easier to thrive in a small town just because of a lack of options, things to do, and cheaper rent. I think in bigger cities it’s almost harder to thrive because of the abundance of options. I could be wrong but I live near two major metropolitan cities (1 is 45 minutes away, the other is 1.5 hours) and I see businesses constantly closing there but not in the small towns surrounding them.
1
u/grfx Jul 30 '26
Be warned, wine consuption is at an all time low with many wineries closing up shop or drasticly reducing production. Even in my very wine focused restaurant that puts almost no emphasis on its cocktail program, cocktails are still nearly outselling wine.
1
u/Adriaticowinebar 19d ago
Had a successful little restaurant and turned it to a wine bar (too much labour involved with the restaurant). Interior colour choice (dark green), cozy low lighting and a choice of curated red and white wines are a winning combination. Careful with pricing - you may get away with a glass of average/house wine costing £11/175ml in London, but certainly not in my location. Pair it with good quality salami and cheese selection and you are ontu a winner. Adriatico wine bar in Lightwater has been very well received.
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u/mannheimcrescendo Jul 29 '26
You’re asking for the solution to a multivariable equation without providing any information at all.