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note: I tried to segment my response but it is rambling and I am too tired to go back and edit.
<u>Market</u>
I don't think you are really going to draw a lot of Cornell kids, they just don't go out to the commons at night given all of the alternatives up the hill. You will be able to draw on IC as well as the local Ithaca rifraff that is looking for something to do. You might also have a draw from shows being let out of Ithaca State Theater if you turn yourself into a cool stoner venue (which seems like a must given your target demo).
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I would definitely be catering to more of the IC crowd. Having lived in Collegetown I know few Cornell students will be willing to make the trip down to the Commons for a place like this. The turn-on for this idea is that it caters to those who are there...by making it eye-catchy drunk kids can stumble in and have a variety of things to do. An idea in the previous thread was to host some kind of tournaments, and unless I'm mistaken, Pixel doesn't do that. Have a few DDR competitions, and I can start building some of a base. The purpose of a place like this, is just to get people in the door. Then it's my job to have enough things for people to spend money on, so they aren't just coming in for a hookah and leaving, likewise with whatever happens, arcade games, food, coffee, etc. The thing is, that all of Ithaca essentially shuts down at 1 am, and if I can somehow make it easy for Cornell students to come to the commons, then I'd have it made. Maybe some kind of promotion where if you show your Cornell ID, you get a free drink, or something like that. Where what I've lost is way overcome by what I've gained.
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There are definitely people looking for something to do when the bars go out which is a plus. I just don't think they are going to be interested in your emporium type venue.
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What would they be interested in then? Obviously, this is the crux. There are so many bars downtown, though, and once 1 am hits, there are so many who won't be able to turn down the allure of a place where they still have some latenight options (imo).
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<u>Wait... what are you doing?</u>
Serving alcohol gets expensive with permits and zoning. Do you have any experience with this?
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No experience with anything. I'm quite ok with failing. I'd rather fail a dozen times now, but at least get the experience in.
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Serving food gets expensive with regulations and storage and a million other things I don't know much about. Do you have any experience with this?
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Again, none. How does regulation and storage affect the expense of food?
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The Hookah bar could definitely fill a need as to my knowledge there isn't one in Ithaca and there is an overlap between your demographic and people who would go to a hookah bar. I think this is the best aspect of your plan.
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Yeah, this is the highlight. In terms of start-up costs, this will be the cheapest endeavor, as well.
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The video games are doable with little investment.
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Depends almost entirely on the game.
This company has an excellent selection of games ranging from $1250 to near $6000. It really depends on what I want, but I can't see a place filled with just old school games. Couple shooters, couple fighters, a DDR, couple racing games...It will add up really, really quickly.
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I think that in order to do all of these things your staff would have to be pretty huge and you would have a lot of variable costs that would be hard to overcome.
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Agreed and disagreed. I would need a decent amount of staff, but in terms of it being a four floor deal, I don't think it will need relatively more. 1 or 2 counter people for food/hookahs, arcade person, server, DJ, Techie/random, and that's about it. The variable costs to overcome, are the same as in any business...overhead, and making a thorough enough business plan to be somewhat certian that I won't get swallowed by the bank's juice.
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<u>Competition</u>
So... you want to be like Pixel on Dryden?
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Yes and no, but as far as I'm concerned mostly no. I've actually never been in Pixel, but with it's location I imagine it was dingy, Dunbar's-style. This might be wrong, someone would have to correct me. Pixel to me is just a bar that wanted to stand out by having arcade games. They do no advertising and are entirely missable unless you know someone else who has been there.
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I never went in there nor did any of my friends but there were drunk Asians playing DDR a lot so I would not be surprised if they turned a profit.
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Word.
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They already have a liquor license though and they already have a presence so the Asians at Cornell will go out and get drunk and play DDR at Pixel and not at your place. If you go through with this plan you better spend a lot of time at Pixel analyzing how they do things.
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They win with this demographic due purely to proximity. If I can do some promotional advertising I should be able to obtain some of that client base.
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Other competition, it will be hard to draw people away from the bars unless you cater to the IHS/underage IC crowd. Your idea might actually serve better as a kiddie hangout for the Ithaca high schoolers (I envision a mix between the emporium in Dazed and Confused and Pixel) because I am unsure why anyone who can go to the bar would go to your narrow place instead.
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The idea is to cater to both crowds, which I don't think is as ludicrous as it sounds. No dude is thinking "I'm drunk, why the hell do I want to go to a dry dance club?" Because the next thought is: "...with 18 year old girls?" If I can get girls into the dance floor, then I can get all guys, too. Once again, this is a need that just isn't served. There was Club Euphoria that just shut down, but they did like no advertising, as far as I was aware, and their location wasn't prime and right on the Commons. I think the problem that you are having when envisioning this is that you are giving too much thought to the arcade section. This isn't going to be an arcade, nor do I want to open an arcade. If I get like 10 games in there, great, income producers. But it's more about having the experience of being able to do a variety of different things once the rest of the town closes down.
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Overall, I just don't see the draw. I don't know why anyone would go to your place and I don't really know what your place will have or do. I think at this stage your idea is pretty
worthless... but you do have a great location, and you can definitely build a successful venue with a lot more thought.
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Italics added [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. The reason that you don't really know what the business will be, is that I'm still fleshing it out. That's the purpose of the post...to get ideas of what people felt was missing in their old collegetown and apply it here.
To sum this up, I would say getting high schoolers in there would be the touch of death. A place like this will only succeed through the image it has. If it's viewed as kiddie day care, no college student will come. This is going to be an 18+ place (at night at least). I am deifnitely going to look into getting beer on tap, because I think that is almost definitely a necessity. I don't care to go through hoops to get a full-fledged liquor license.