Download Otter for your meeting notes

Bar Ownership Journey Interview | Otter.ai

Bar Ownership Journey Interview

Patrick Prendergast14min

Patrick Prendergast

00:01

Hello, hello, hello.

Patrick Prendergast

00:02

Toff, hi, I'll say it again. Oh, okay, all right, um, how did you discover our Learn?

Patrick Prendergast

00:18

Oh, how. Oh, wait, my bad. Okay, starting over, what did you want to do when you were growing up?

dave toth

00:28

I want to do when I was growing up? That's, I don't know. Probably, I probably wanted to play hockey, yeah, long time ago now, I magazine,

Patrick Prendergast

00:44

how? How is it that you ended up owning a bar slash restaurant?

dave toth

00:50

It's kind of a long path, because I started out bartending and then working in hotels for years, and just as I got gained experience and enjoyed the the industry and the business, the once an opportunity actually arose. It was something that I thought I had to jump on. And here we are. 18 years later, we're still

Patrick Prendergast

01:18

How did you discover or learn how to run a bar.

dave toth

01:23

It's funny, I was working in a hotel, and I was working at the front desk as a Bellman, and they had a pub in the hotel, and they needed bartender for just Sundays because the bartender got sick or something, so they just asked me to bartend, and that's when I really kind of got hooked on it, and decided to take a bartending course, and then started getting jobs as bartenders and just learning on the job as I went and especially in different venues, different styles of venues, especially hotels, because there's so so many Different departments that I worked in that just learned different things from all the different departments. Wow,

Patrick Prendergast

02:08

what did you like the most about your work? What do you like the most about your

dave toth

02:15

work? Probably the people you meet. You meet so many different people from all different walks of life, and everybody has interesting stories, and that always keeps it fresh and interesting, and that's probably what I like the best. Yeah,

Patrick Prendergast

02:30

what is the most challenging about your job?

dave toth

02:35

Well, when it was just a job as a bartender, the same, similarly, it's the people make it stressful. You have, you know, intoxicated people or unhappy customers that you have to kind of deal with. But as a business owner, the stress has come more with the business end of it. Insurance costs always going up. Labor costs always going up, having to count on your your labor force, to be reliable. That's that's always a stress in your that weighs over you. So those are some of the things. Yeah,

Patrick Prendergast

03:15

do you feel successful?

dave toth

03:19

I do. I do in life in general, just because I have no great wife and kids, and so I feel like I have a successful life in that regard. As far as the business goes, I think our business has been successful, and it's popular, and people still love it, and it's been beloved for years, so that's a feeling of pride,

Patrick Prendergast

03:41

yeah. What does successful mean to you?

dave toth

03:48

Success to me, like I said, is more about life. Happiness, not Monet, not necessarily monetary. You know what I mean, or having 15 bars, you know, bragging rights or anything, I think it's more about, you know, running something that you're proud of, that people enjoy, and then balancing that with a good life, you know, with family, a good family

Patrick Prendergast

04:17

life. Yeah. Do you have any regrets or changes you would have made going to this profession?

dave toth

04:25

Yeah, the one regret I have, or I think we should have done, was open a second location within the first few years. Yeah, really strike while the iron is hot in the first few years. And we didn't do that. And the longer you wait, the more difficult it is. And then, as I say, life goes on. And now got, you know, kids and family responsibilities that I didn't have when I first started the business, when I had a lot more energy and time. And I think it would have been the smartest move to open at least the second location right away.

Patrick Prendergast

04:55

Yeah, why did you choose not to open a second location?

dave toth

04:59

I think it was, we looked at it here and there, and the opportunities never really fell in our lap that we thought would work and and even in the first few years, it was financially related, we didn't have enough finances to get what we wanted to go, get going. I think we should have gone out of our comfort zone and found a way to do it, though, yeah,

Patrick Prendergast

05:25

if I were to pursue a career in your profession, what advice would you give me?

dave toth

05:34

Are you referring to owning a business? Yeah. Well, the main, main advice, really know the business before you get into it. Really know the ins and outs of the different that's another kind of thing I think we should have, I should have done, personally, is I should know more about the kitchen. I should know more about how kitchens operate better. I know a lot more than I did when I first started this business, but I think going into the business would have been helpful to really know the ins and outs of every aspect of industry, including food and not just front of house. So know as much as you can know before you get it going. Yeah.

Patrick Prendergast

06:21

How did you discover or learn that you wanted to be of the things that you needed to be a business

dave toth

06:34

owner? I really it was, it's more it's funny how life just takes that path. You know, it's not like it wasn't even planned out. I wouldn't say it was planned out. It always was in the back of my mind. I thought that would be an option potentially or could be interesting move, but it was more. Time just marched on, and I just kept getting deeper and deeper in the restaurant industry. And then when the opportunity arose, I just took it, yeah.

Patrick Prendergast

07:03

Can you tell me more about how it started? Like, how did you guys start out with this restaurant?

dave toth

07:09

Well, I was still living in New York, and my business partner had moved out to California, yeah. And so before he left, he lived in New York at the same time as I did, and we looked at a couple locations in New York, and I never really materialized, so kind of put it on the back burner. But after he moved out here, we kind of kept looking at listings in San Diego as well as New York. I was still looking in New York, here and there, and even Florida, oddly enough. But when the opportunity for this location came up, I flew out to check it out, because my partner thought it was looked like a pretty good location and pretty good opportunity. And it was almost that fast we saw it, we negotiated and decided to go for it. Wow. And so then for the after we finalized the deal, then we had to do a lot of construction to build the way we wanted the restaurant to look. So I was flying back and forth from New York on my days off to help let in trades people and help my partner with the logistics of getting everything built and ready to open, you know, as quickly as we could. Yeah,

Patrick Prendergast

08:29

well, what motivates you to keep going?

dave toth

08:38

I think I still enjoy it. That's if I didn't enjoy it, I think I'd pack it in, be honest with it's been many years, and I think I would go I would probably find something else to do if I didn't still enjoy it, and still didn't feel a sense of pride and feel that this business has something to offer other people and myself,

Patrick Prendergast

09:01

yeah, where does the sense of pride come from in owning a business?

dave toth

09:07

Well, in this business, particularly, I think it's the customers. Yeah, number one. Number two is the staff. We've had staff that have been with us for, you know, a decade. There were many years, multiple years, and they seem to enjoy coming to work and they and they like working at something that we built, which is definitely a feeling of pride. And then as far as customers, we've had long term customers have been coming here for since we've been open, which is amazing, and friendships built and relationships built, and that's where the price comes from. Yeah.

Patrick Prendergast

09:46

How did your previous experience prepare you for this job?

dave toth

09:52

I think especially working at a bar in midtown Manhattan in New York for almost a decade really taught me a lot, as far as really opened my eyes to almost anything that could happen would happen. Anything could happen in a place like that. It was such a busy place, it was right in midtown Manhattan, so never knew who was coming through the door next what might occur, what might happen, what I saw with the guys that I worked for was a couple brothers, and I saw how they ran it, and I saw how what made them successful, how they had two bars in New York for many years, and that was the biggest

Patrick Prendergast

10:36

learning experience. Yeah. How would you describe your leadership style.

dave toth

10:45

I say I try to let people do it, not do it the way they want to do I don't want to say it that way. I'd say, let people shine how they can shine with their what they offer, what they can offer to the business and you know what they bring to the table, and just try and encourage that, not be authoritarian or bossy or anything like that. I do have high standards, and I hold high standards, and I expect high standards for myself, as I do for my staff, and I think it's fair standards, but I think it's helped make us successful at some

Patrick Prendergast

11:24

extent. Yeah, why do you choose to lead in that way?

dave toth

11:30

It's probably everybody has their personality. I don't know how much it is actually thought out or contrived. It's more I feel like I'm a hard worker. I expect hard work out of my employees and I but I also think I'm a fair person and try to be understanding and try to listen. I think I'm a pretty good listener, so I think that that helps.

Patrick Prendergast

11:55

Yeah, was it hard to open a restaurant?

dave toth

12:00

It definitely has its hurdles and challenges as far as finding a location, making taking that leap of faith that it is the right location, that your your concept is the right concept. It's the right concept for that location, for that city, for that neighborhood, and then that's just step one. And then once you do find that and you can, you take that leap of faith, and that's not even taking into consideration the finances you have to build, whether by borrowing or saving or so, there's a bunch of hurdles before you even get going. And then once you are get going, then you're talking about permits and liquor license transfers and those type of hurdles that you have to jump over. And so there's challenges before you start, once you start, and then they continue to this day with things that pop up in a business.

Patrick Prendergast

13:05

Was there ever a time where you've felt like giving up on opening the business

dave toth

13:12

before I opened or after

Patrick Prendergast

13:14

we opened? Before or after?

dave toth

13:19

Yeah, before. Like I said, it happened so quickly. When the location came available, I probably would have kept looking if this had not come to fruition. So I don't know where I'd be now, but after it's been opened, the first year was a challenge. It was one of those, what have I got myself into? You know, I had a pretty fishy kind of bartending job in New York City that I enjoyed, and a lifestyle that I enjoyed in New York to change cities and start something so unknown. Yeah, definitely. The first six months was bit of soul searching at times, like, did I make the right decision? We weren't making a lot of money. It was, you know, struggling along at first, like any business would, and I knew it would, but yeah, that was probably the one time I'd say that it was a question mark.

Patrick Prendergast

14:11

Do you think it paid off in the end?

dave toth

14:14

I do. I don't think, I don't try to be someone who looks back with regret in any way. And I think we built something fairly successful that people love, and people enjoy coming to. And we profitable over the years. So I think we've been.

Patrick Prendergast

14:34

Yeah, well that was all the questions. Okay, good interviewing is yeah good questions. Cool, yeah, well, that was all the questions. Okay, good interviewing you.

Patrick Prendergast

14:43

Yeah, good question. Thanks. You.

00:0000:00