wine bars

[winenovice21]

wine bars are becoming very popular how can one start a wine bar and is there somewhere I can go for help, such as a business plan?

[wondersofwine]

Others may answer. We have board members or contributors who have been in wine retail, own wineries, or have background in the hospitality business. However, you might start with the local office of the Small Business Administration. Someone there might be able to discuss with you developing a business plan. Also some communities have a group of volunteer businessmen who will assist in the planning for a new business. Your local SBA office, Chamber of Commerce, library or newspaper may have contacts for such an organization. Where are you located?
At least one other forum contributor dreams of opening a wine bar (in California) while another one is making plans to open a retail wine shop in Washington state.

[This message has been edited by wondersofwine (edited 05-09-2005).]

[winenovice21]

I am located in Oregon and I have found that there isnt much information on how to start a wine bar because they are so new any help would be appreicated

[hotwine]

Welcome to the board.

A wine bar sounds like a fun idea but here are some issues to consider:

1. You'll need a state license to sell alcoholic beverages, and proably also city and/or county approvals.

2. Since you would be selling such beverages to the public, you would need liability insurance - lots of it - to protect you in the event one of your customers were to have an accident after visiting your business.

3. Selling wines by the glass, which is what such businesses do, means you would need to open several bottles at once, and be prepared to absorb the loss if they weren't all finished in one evening. (Keeping an opened bottle overnight to finish the next day could result in oxidation of the wine and lose customers.)

4. Location would be key to obtaining steady walk-in traffic, and that would likely mean high rental costs.

5. You would need a means to handle rowdy customers; a bouncer, perhaps (see #2 above).

The movie "Sideways" notwithstanding, I'd look for another way to lose money.

[winoweenie]

Hi WN and welcome to the board. The 1st question that comes to mind is how knowledgeable are you personally about wine?
Next would be are you able to get a liquor license in the area you're contmeplating, and lastly how well are you capitalized? Just putting in some stools, a counter, bottles of wine, and smiling will not make for success. WW

[wondersofwine]

If you really are serious about this you might want to subscribe to some trade journals in the field to get ideas. Wine Business Online has the following link: http://winebusiness.com/ They publish Wine Business Monthly and Wine Business Insider. A phrase search under "wine bars" brought up several citations but you need to be a subscriber to see the full article. One was about wine bars proliferating in Portland, Oregon and said that historically wine bars have a hard time staying in business in Portland with half a dozen opening and closing over the last few years. That article was from 2002 and I think the drift was that some of the wine bars are doing better financially now than in the past but without access to the full article I'm not sure. It also had citations for articles on collective tasting rooms where several wineries share expenses to market their wines and about serving snacks with glasses of wine.