The Beginning (3)

The thing I wanted and have always wanted most in a bartender is trust. Second would be the ability to put up with people’s shit and be able to put them in there place if need be. This place was Hard Times and I was sure that we would have a lot of the old undesirable filth showing up to check the place out. I was not concerned about what my bartenders looked like or how many people they knew. I was sure about my product, I am going to hold off on the bartender thing and move to more of what we wanted the Spitfire to become…… My intention was whoever walked in the door, they would know it was a punk bar. Other places around town really had nothing to offer as a comfortable place for punks to hangout and listen to there own music. The places that we hung out at were either places that had shows (but you would never go there if there was not a show), or was just some neighborhood bar that never really cared about punk music or knew anything about it, they just wanted your money, so once and a while they would have a punk D.J. I also wanted a place with a huge beer selection. Back in the day me and my friends would frequent the Warren Tavern and they had a ton on beer. The other thing I wanted was cheap canned beer (the stuff I grew up on). I wanted a place where regardless of your budget, we would have it. The other main thing was to never have a cover charge (cause free is good), my wife was in a band (Fast Mattress) and I would see what the shitty things that clubs would do (and I understand them now as owning a bar) and I wanted to make sure I was a fair as I could be. My intention was to make sure the bands walked out of the bar after they played without spending any money. Many times my wife’s band would play out and spend over $100 in drinks between them and then get 20 bucks from the owners (part of that was because the bar had to pay a sound guy, I could do the sound myself). This was like basically they had to spend money to go out and play. I decided to give the bands free canned beer. I also would pay %10 of the total sales to whoever booked the show. For the most part we would pay the cash to the out of town band, since they had extra expenses to get here. I always would make sure that each band knew exactly what to expect when they booked a show here. The other thing was that because of the size of my place and the history of underage drinking at the Hard Times, I needed to make sure it was 21 and over. I was sure to have police and liquor control on my back all the time, I needed to have an image of being responsible. I remember being under age and going out and we were a bunch of shit heads, breaking shit, drinking in cars outside the clubs, sneaking in to every show, breaking shit, etc.. Once we turned 21 we kind of simmered down (so I definitely did not want to deal with a bunch of little stosh‘s). Plus my wife is a teacher and if a student of her’s would ever get busted drinking here she would lose her job.

I knew I would end up doing a lot of other things once we open (beerzooka, half pipe, etc..) because I wanted the place to keep evolving. We would have to evolve because when you open any bar you have a “hippness” of being the new place to be and then all the other bars are trying to see what you are doing and copy some of the things you are doing (because they have no imagination or skills to do their own thing), but this is the bar business it is very completive and backstabbing. I knew we would eventually lose our crowd that is just business, it is one reason we never advertised or had a sign. I figured for the first year we could just run on our newness and when things start to slope we would get a sign ( there are 40,000 cars that drive on w. 117th everyday, and a portion of those cars are going to the phantasty, high-fi, five o’clock) Those first two years I would meet people all the time who never heard of the Spitfire, this was a good thing, there were so many people who have still not been to the Spitfire and they listen to punk music. I was looking to have a slow steady growth, not the quick bam bam business you have with huge ad campaigns and stuff and then you die out after a year. (there are many people that have claimed us as their second home from day 1 and i am humbled by their presence all the time)

 

that’s it for now, I feel like I am rambling and the writing is getting real sloppy (more than usual)……..