recap (august)

So I have not blogged in a while, so let start… I recently got an email from a band in NYC that said Antiseen (legendery punk band that played here about a year ago) was saying how  the Spitfire was an awesome place. Its one thing when a band comes in and says this is the best place they have ever played, as an owner you think that a lot of that is just talk and they want to kiss your ass.  Do not get me wrong I think this is the best place on earth, this is my child and who does not love their children. Well that is a great compliment when bands are on the road and they say the Spitfire Saloon is a great place to play.  There are actually a lot of bands that spread the Spitfire word and I appreciate that, many bands from out of town actually consider this their bar. The one thing I always try to do is to graciously accommodate bands. I will usually try to help them load in, make sure they have beers on stage etc. but of course I try to make sure everyone has a good time.  All anyone has if they never met you is your reputation and I think we have a good one.

Mods Vs Rockers

We had a Motorcycle/Scooter rally this past week is was a great success and was larger than last years which was the first one. We are more or less the cornerstone of the event. The event organizers usually have a meet and great on that Friday and this it happen at a new bar 2 miles down the road. Then on Saturday there is a two hour ride around the Cleveland area that eventually ends up here. We blocked off two blocks this year for the bikes and vendors. Later in the night there was a free ska show at NTC for anyone that register for the event.  Our real responsibility for the event is to get the permits and block of the street and help in any other way the day of the event.  James from P.O.C. is the organizer of the event and I proud and honored to be part of the event. The night before the event I told my wife that because I was going to have to wake up so early that I was going to sleep at the bar (she bought me a cot for Christmas last year). Sleeping at the bar is never a good idea and I regret it every time I do it. I could not fall asleep and at 9am I decided it might be better to go sleep in my car. I usually sleep in my car quite comfortably, it was not happening this day. At about 11am a vendor pulls in the lot and wakes me out of my light sleep. They did not even know I was in my car. I get out of my car all ragged with no shoes on ( I sure they wondering what the fuck was this guys story and later realized I was the owner, I must of seemed pretty shady). So James and I get the street closed off and at 1pm about 60+ bikes roll in at once. Last year I scheduled two bartenders and cut one because it it was not busy enough for two bartenders. This year I scheduled only one and that was a mistake. From the time we open until we closed we were slammed, I was helping bartend until I got someone to come in and help. Myself and the other bartender where out of our minds, we did not even have time to think.  I was not even sure what planet I was on, we where taking 2-3 orders at a time and that was not enough to keep up. It stayed like that until 7pm. When the other bartender got in I tried to take a nap in my hot car. I could not sleep even though I was completely exhausted.  Finally things thinned out when we had to open back up the street and I was able to drive home see the kids for about 10minutes and take a shower and try to take a nap again, no deal again. Went back in because I had 2 bands that night.  Night went pretty good, but I thought it might be busier. I think everyone was out early and went to bed. Finally at 4:30am got home to bed, and it was dreamy. One last thing I feel obligated to comment on was that fact that I did not run a happy hour during Mods Vs Rockers. The fact of the matter is that I needed  $3000 to renew my liquor license by the end of the month. I usually do not do such a shady thing but I am trying get my bills paid so I can stay operating. To offset this happy hour price thing I gave everyone that registered for the event $1 cans. Well that is it for now.

Weekly recap 7/27/2011

So i will start doing weekly recaps, up events and booking inquiries that have come through in the past week or so. I guess the most signifigant thing of the past week was when 3 people made the unfortunate decision to fuck with someones bike, parked at the bar. They have not come forward and confessed up that they where drunk idiots or anything. They are people that do not come here and most people know who they are. I am sure they will being looking over there shoulder for quite some time and will be on edge when they see someone with a Spitfire shirt or patch.  We finally scheduled this years Great Rock n Roll Scramble, a golf outing for those who do not look like your typical golfers. All info is on our website.  All I contacted James ( the organizer for Mods Vs. Rockers) and told him that anyone that pre-registers for Mods vs Rockers will get $1 cans (there is a link on our website)… A lot of people our coming in from out of town this year and we have decided to take up another block on the street.  That is it really for the week. Here are some bands that inquired about playing here, half the people do not read our booking policy and try to book weekday shows, come on bands read the policy… One more thing we have a big show on Saturday (lots of old cleveland legends) and Lorain Scum is finally release their first cd after 10 years (friday), Glitter Trash is playing with them, if you have not seen them you should make a point to…

http://www.myspace.com/yomajesty4life

http://www.thewinethewomenandthebomb.com/

http://www.krashkarma.com/promo

http://www.xraypress.net/

http://www.reverbnation.com/demonboy

http://www.sonicbids.com/thegreatestofthese

http://www.parabelle.ca/

http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=319878

 

 

 

 

 

“Now That’s Class”

“Now That’s Class”

We opened in November of 2006. In January of 2007 I heard through the grapevine that another punk bar was opening up two blocks away. Of course I was like, what? At first I kind of did not believe it. How long has it been since a new place that caters to punks only opened up and two places open up in a year, let alone two blocks from each other. I remember I went to look for the place and I really did not know where exactly. It was Super Bowl Sunday and I went to the block where I thought it would be and went in to the only bar on the block that was open. I walked in and it seemed like the whole bar looked at me and the place came to a screeching halt. I did not walk into “Now That’s Class” (I would find out later that it would not open until later that March) I walked in to the “Hawk”. The Hawk is what some gays that come to the Spitfire refer to as “where gays go to die”. Imagine a seedy, small, hole in the wall, gay bar. It is essentially a late night pick up joint, but the place is always hopping. Usually when I go into a bar, I feel obligated to buy one drink and leave, but the situation being what it was and the place being packed, I just turned around and walked out. I do not consider myself homophobic, but this was a extreme situation and I felt very awkward. Well anyway I would later learn that “Now That’s Class” was next door to the hawk. Of course when a new place opens up or two similar places exist, people take sides or pledge their allegiance to one place. There are several similarities between us and “Class“. A lot of it is because their owner and myself are roughly the same age, we group up in Cleveland , I grew up on the Westside (“The Best SIDE..”) and he grew up on the East side. We both know a lot of the same people, being in this scene (20+years) you are going to know everyone (at least your age). The biggest things that are that really separate us are 1.) Spitfire is 21 & Over – “Class” is all ages. 2.) We are strictly punk- “Class” has a pretty open format, as long as its underground (from indie -rock-rap). 3.) Our shows are free- “class’s shows are for the most part pay shows, but they have the room for larger national acts. 4.) Spitfire only does shows on Friday and Saturday (with 2 or 3 bands)- Class has shows every night with anywhere from 3-5 bands. 5.) The average age at Spitfire is probably 29- “class“ is probably about 24. (essentially its not who is better, we try to be more of a bar, they are more of a live club)

If you ask different people in Cleveland the differences you will have a lot of people talking a lot of negative stuff about Spitfire or “Class” depending on where they go. I would say that we share about %30 of the same clientele, and those people respect both places. Most people think that me and the owner of “Class” are big enemies, not the case at all, we both are trying to survive and nurture the local scene. I know that employees of both places have a tendencies of talking shit about the opposite place, but whatever. Spitfire has no issue with “class” we are essentially both trying to do the same thing, but are going about it in different ways, and we are really completely different places to go. You might prefer Spitfire or “class” or both. The fact is that it’s really a small group of people that try to make Spitfire and “class” out to have some kind of conflict when one does not exist..

The Beginning (6)

This part I will talk about prices and specials. Before I opened I had to do some “research” and find out what bars where charging for drinks. What I basically came up with is that mark up was somewhere between 350% and 400%. That is a pretty simple way to mark up but I had some conflicts with the markup up of canned beer. The price of a can of PBR is $0.54 so with that mark up would make a can of Pabst roughly $2. It would be hard for me to charge someone that for a can of beer. So I decided on $1.50. The other problem is we where going to have 22 ounce bottles of some high end beers. A bottle of Delirium Tremens costs about $7.5 with the traditional mark up that would make the bottle $26.25. I decided on $10 at the time. I wanted people that enjoyed a higher end beer to know that we had great prices for imports and microbrews. That being said for the most part our markup was 350%, just like everyone else, but over all our prices where still cheaper.

When we first opened we really did not have any specials. This is something that I was not too eager to do (because I already structured our prices to be fair. But after a month or so of doing the books, it was clear of the days of that needed some help in generating revenue. As you might of guessed strong nights are Friday and Saturday. The other nights needed some help. There is a weird conflict with the idea of trying to get people to come drink that would rather just stay in and not drink. I am not trying to get everyone to become an alcoholic. I would rather say we are doing specials to get people to come the Spitfire rather than go to some other bar. So we came up with $2 beam on Sundays and also S.I.N. (Service Industry Night), Monday would be $1.25 PBR bottles, Tuesdays $1 cans, Wednesdays was a d.j. night with Larry Szyms ( who I basically grew up with), and Thursday was bartenders pick. Having specials legally is a tricky thing when it comes to Ohio Liquor laws. For a bar you can not sell beer or liquor below a 40% markup (also happy hour has to end by 9pm, you will get fined if you go past 9). You will see many bars do $.50 drafts and $.10 beer nights and on and on. The way to get away with this is to have a separate legal entity “sponsor” these specials. Like when we started we had each day sponsoring our drink specials ( 252 Tattoo, Westside Skates, Voodoo Monkey Tattoo, Chenga Skatepark, Chain Link Addiction). These places sponsored our nights. Legally they are suppose to cover the difference if the special falls below state minimum. The other reason that I approached them was that I was a new place and was just starting out and my brand was not known by anyone. I needed established brands to be associated with us, a kind of “oh these places think this place is cool so it must be a cool place.” In return they would get some free advertisement on our postcards and on the web. Brand association works, I am very picky about who and what events is associated with our brand, it takes a long time to make a solid brand. Its like if you throw a PBR brand on something it kind of blows that event up, it makes it bigger than just the little event that it might be. So anyway we have the specials now (some are still the same as today, some are different). I forgot to add the free jukebox on Sundays. The whole Jukebox and ASCAP nightmare, I will talk about next time and how this is going change our current f

The Incidents

This Section  (the incidents) is just another part of owning a bar. I will not use real names (and you should not either) whether they are customers or bartenders. And also for legal reasons I do not claim that anything I write here is actually true. Most this part of the story will come from your comments. there are many crazy things that happen here, but not as much as you might think. This part can be from different people coming in, a fight (their has been only about 8 in five years), some one just getting thrown out, etc.

So here is one.

I use to bartend on Sunday nights, it is one of our industry nights. Our clientele is a lot of industry people anyway so this is a way to give back (mainly because Sundays can be slow and industry people know how to tip for good service). So we get all types of industry people from bartenders to strippers (dancers). On this particular night there was a hair metal show at Peabody’s and we had some people bring up a couple of band members from this hair metal band (I have no idea who it was or even care). They come in with a couple regulars and a couple dancers and the manager of one of the local gentlemen’s clubs. Well they are all hanging out and having a good time I started them all a tab. We probably had about eight other people in the bar. I go to take a leak (there have been several times that I am taking a leak and something happens) and come back upstairs and I see a tall strippers beating up one of the short little hair metal guys. She was poking him in the head with her stiletto (high heel). One of the regulars ask if I was going to do anything about it and I said no. I did not know either of them and they where not really bugging any of the regulars so I just let it go cause it was kind of funny. I let it go until they started moving toward the pinball machine. I was yelling “not by the pinball machine” and it eventually got by the pinball machine. I walked around the bar, broke it up, the stripper was trying to pull out the hair metal guys hair (and succeeding) he was bleeding from the head because she probably hit him with the heel of her shoe about 30 times. I got him and his band mate out of the bar, with no resistance. Now, they had got a ride to the Spitfire and they are from L.A. (of course) and do not know where to go. They are outside and are throwing clumps of grass in the bar, I have no idea why. I go out and talk to him, to chill him out and get him some stuff to clean up his bloody head. Then they leave and 20 minutes later I see him peaking in the window like a little peeping tom. I go out to him and he said he left his leather. I go in and grab his leather and send him on his way. I would be curious to hear where they went after that because they where pretty fucked up when they got here. So anyway the stripper guy manager, it was his girlfriend that started the fight in my bar, cashes out and leaves me a shit tip. I should of just thrown them out and let the hair metal guys stay, the hair metal guys did not seem like bad guys they where just fucked up. (and I do not know what the fight was about). Oh well… one of many little incidents..

The Beginning (5)

So we are open now and things are going well. Its quite a nice feeling when you spend months on creating something and people are in your place enjoying what you created. Things where good. The fact of the matter was that we where busy because of three main reasons: 1.) We where new, the place to go. People heard the buzz around town and we where the hip place to be. Many people where coming just because they where “hipsters” another place would open up and they would move on to the next bar, they are like heard of cattle. 2.) We where really the only place to go. At the time we opened the people that started coming here really hung out at two other places before we opened. Those places where the Garage or the 5 o’clock lounge. People would come in and say that I was really hurting these other places. When I open, my only intention was to fill a void in the city that was not really being met, it actually was a bit of a downer that I my business was negatively impacting someone else. I never even thought that I would be draw business away from somewhere else. The 5 o’clock was a place that many of me and my friends hung out. The only reason we went there was because it was just a place that people like us hung out. They did not try to cater to us, there jukebox was just like any other neighborhood jukebox, it was really just a bar like any other. They would have some punk d.j.’s. here and there. I would not say they where actually contributing to the “scene” in anyway. The real reason we went there is because the generations before us went there. The place was really the place to go after a show. Its located a block from The Phantasy Concert (a club that used to booked some large national punk touring acts in the 80’s and 90’s). We would always complain about the prices at the Phantasy and just go to the “5”. Another club that was right in the neighborhood was the Blind Lemon (mid 90’s, now called the Hi-Fi). We would always hit the “5” after the Blind Lemon shows also. The other place that I guess we drew business from was the Garage. I really have nothing to say one way or another about the Garage. I never went there until about 6 months after we opened. The only thing I knew about the place was that it was the place to be. I remember reading an article in the paper when they first opened and thought the concept was cool.

People have many different opinions about different bars owners in Cleveland. Some say some owners have their shady ways to rip people off, they have a coke problems, etc. (I wonder what people say about me?). The fact is this business is a rough and has a lot of highs and lows, it really takes its toll on you. I can easily see why these other owners make some of the decisions that they do and become vulnerable to different habits. The goal is to keep the business making money and coping with your downturns. I could probably learn something from them or maybe not. The problem I constantly have is that there are always two situations that come up: 1.) Doing the thing that puts money in your pocket (no matter what). 2.) Doing the honest thing and not fuck anyone over. I always choose #2 and sometimes that is not the best for the business, but I can live with myself. Time will decide if this business model works….

The 3rd reason people came here: They got what we where doing and respected it, they appreciated the commitment to punk. The people that are regulars appreciate the music, but many of them appreciate the honest business approach. The other thing is good bartenders that are attentive and respectful. The other thing is the good people that come here. I admit that I like saying we are a punk bar, but that is really the minor part of being the Spitfire. The real thing that we are is a place where good honest people hangout. It is just a place where anyone that is not a dickhead or total bitch can come and hang out and have a good time and meet some other good people… (to be cont.)

The Beginning (4)

So it is November 2006 and we got the approval to open. Now we need to buy beer and liquor. So I start asking the local convenient store owners, who the beer distributors are and start collecting numbers. There are about 8 different beer distributors that we use. When I was making our first orders I would just ask the sales reps what was good and selling, this actually worked out really well and is probably the best way to do it. I really had no idea what to order besides the normal stuff that every bar had. I really just drank Pabst (and that is all I still drink). It is funny that I own 80 variety of beers and I still drink the PBR, that is what my body is use too, you start drinking some of those higher end beers and you will get fucked up a lot quicker than you intended. Well away the beer orders where coming in and I have to tell you that it is very cool when you have about 80 different beers, about 150 cases of beer and you own all them, I felt pretty jazzed up seeing all that beer. Next would be making a liquor order. Now at this point I really have no clue what the fuck all that different liquor is that I have stared at hundreds of times sitting at a bar. So for this task I really just put my trust in the bartenders. They made up a list of stuff and I ordered it. The problem I came to, when I placed the order was that I was flat broke. I imagine a lot of people that start a business did what I did, spend every cent they have to get open and then max out every credit card they can get there hands on . So I had to ask a family member for a $3,000 loan (asking people you know for money sucks balls). I was able to pay it back a week later, thank god. We had all the goods a day before our grand opening and where getting things together and then realized, we actually could open right then, so I said fuck it lets just open. We opened the doors and I went home to eat dinner with the family and drove back later in the night. When I drove back that night, I saw flashing blue and red lights and this was the first time we ever used the open sign, I thought to myself “that is a fucking awesome open sign“. As I got closer I realized it was the cops, not my rinky dink open sign. We have been open only a couple hours and the cops are already at the bar. I pulled up and parked and asked one of the bartenders what happened. He said the guy was just acting crazy walking down the middle of the street and the cops just happen to be driving by. Thank god it had nothing to do with us, if there is one thing that needed to be done to be successful on this corner, it was to shed that “Hard Times” punch palace/junky hangout reputation that this building had. You would think that it might be a good rep. for a punk bar, but its bad for business. To be cont…

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)……..

The Beginning (2)

 

 

So I went to Westside and asked Brian (the owner) if he knew any kids that could help me out. He wasn’t sure about kids but he knew a guy that was always hanging out at the shop, kind of just being a pain in the ass. He thought this guy would jump at the chance to make some extra cash. So I told him the next time the guy comes up send him up to the bar.

 

So later that day the guy comes up and starts work. He seemed alright, he worked hard and things where getting done. After a couple days I came to realize he was basically a bum and had some physiological problems. So I told him that he could stay upstairs, although there was no power or plumbing but I could run an extension cord upstairs for him. There was no water but you could still piss in the toilet. It was a way that maybe I could help someone get back on there feet. So we did a lot of work here is a short list.

 

-removed all the flooring from behind the floor and replaced (it was completely rotted out)

 

– Knocked out the “kitchen” which was totally fucked, I can’t believe that anyone would order food at the Hard Times.

 

-We loaded two huge dumpster up with junk

 

– Scraped about $2000 in scrap metal

 

– Knocked down all the walls in the basement and built new ones to better layout the bathrooms. The ladies bathroom was the craziest thing, it was a decent size room with one toilet in the corner and it was way fucked up.

 

– I totally refinished the bar itself.

 

– ran all new electrical and plumbing (with some professional help)

 

I could go on and on but, I guess you get the point, a lot of shit was done…..

 

Well anyway I told “Jack” my helper that when we where going to get to the point of having inspectors coming in that he would have move out. Now you would think that after a couple months of living rent free and getting paid cash everyday and I also paid for lunch everyday, that he might have money to get a real apartment. Well he had a habit of going out and drinking all his day’s pay away. So he was broke. It is a sad thing, but all in all he helped me out and I tried to help him out. The final day that he was to leave like a day before one of my inspections he totally flooded the upstairs toilet and shit and piss where totally leaking into the bar. I grabbed the ladder and tryed to get a bucket to clear the water off the ceiling tiles and the next thing you know a flood of “Jacks” shit and piss comes pouring on my head. This is probably the grossest thing that ever has happened to me and I was mad as fuck. He came down from upstairs to help clean up and realized what had happened and did not say a word. Well anyway he moved out and I was getting real close to being able to open.

 

When you open a business in any city you need a Certificate Of Occupancy , this is basically saying how many people you can have in your place of business and that your place has been inspected and deemed safe to have a business operate there. Well they really did not start enforcing this till the 70’s and a lot of places slipped through the cracks, like the property that the bar is on. Since it was built in 1920 and always had a business in it, it was able to slip though the cracks of city hall. Well since the building was vacant for so long, the city of Cleveland had an eye on what I was doing and wanted to make sure everything was on the up and up. Their real concern was to make sure it did not become what it once was. I would always tell them it was going to just a rock n roll bar. I did not want to scare them with the word punk. The one thing that they really pushed for was for me to change the name. Since I would have several city inspections, I decided not to keep the name, the city could totally fuck me if they did not pass me on a inspection. So anyway since I was basically making a bar from scratch there where several hoops I had to jump though.

 

First I would need to get my Certificate of Occupancy ( this would entail a inspection by the building and fire inspector). After that inspection then I could get my health inspection. Then after that inspection I could get my Liquor Control Inspection. When those where all done I could open.

 

Well I passed all those inspections and now I just needed to hire some bartenders who knew how to fucking bartend. To be cont…..

The Beginning

 

I have work at United Parcel Service for 13 years, it was the place that I had planned on working for the rest of my life. I started there when I was 19 years old. I started loading trucks and had various other part time positions until I heard they where hiring tractor trailer drivers. If I got my CDL I would gaurenteed a full time position with good pay and a secure future. So I got my CDL and became a tractor trailer driver for UPS. Things started out great I had money I had, got married and had a baby. But I soon realized that this job would never allow me to see my kid grow up. The 95 percent of the tractor trailer drivers work evenings thus no diner with the family and when the kid was old enough I would never see a dance recital or any activity… Also I never saw my wife she was a school teacher we had opposite schedules, the schedule was absolutely depressing. The job was easy, just drive a truck from point a to point b, but it was completely boring and my mind was turning to mush. Also there was the constant of driving back to the warehouse and you thought you where going home and you would be sent out again, this would happen all the time, the wife would call and I would have to explain that I would not be home for a while. The whole state of things depressed me a lot, there was many times that I would be driving over a bridge and I would think that I could end this right know and drive this truck right off the side of this bridge. That thought came across my mind a lot and it was scary. Me and my wife discussed me quitting all the time, I would look in the classifieds all the time, but I worked here all my adult life and had no real skills that would be able to get me out of this job. When I first went fulltime I started making more money than I was ever used to so I started putting as much in my 401k as I could and it was building. We decided that maybe flipping houses was something I could do. I knew I could build and fix anything, I had so much more potential than being a truck driver. So we started looking at properties and one day we drove by a bar that was for sale. It happen to be the Hard Times Salon. The Hard Times was a old stomping ground for me and my friends, it was also a place that would serve us when we where not 21 yet. Another one of it attributes was that it was the stomping ground for lots of troublemakers (drug dealers, ex-cons, addicts). The place was closed down now for a couple years, do to the previous owners where into some real shady stuff. Driving by it, the thought of buying it never crossed my mind, until later in the week I saw a classified for it in the paper. I ran it by the wife and she said to check it out. I went to check it out and looked at it. I met the realtor there and the place was fucked up. The place was basically in ruins, the power was off and we had to have flashlights to look around and it was real creepy. There was a ton of junk in the basement and you could not walk around. None of the equipment looked like it was even close to ever working, I can’t believe people ever would even come here.. The things is that I wanted a place that I could basically gut it out and then build up, to what I wanted it to be “ A Punk Bar”. The location was appealing. 1) It already had a history of punks hanging out there, me and my friends use to hang out there), 2.) It was located in Cleveland, across the street was the city of Lakewood (the most densely populated area between Chicago and New York). 3.) It was closed down, so we could totally re invent the property. So we went to banks to seek out funds. They basically told us that bars and restaurants are to risky and I have no bar management experience. So we got a lawyer drew up and land contract for 2 years ( a land contract is basically the seller still finances you buying the building, in this case for two years , so at the end of two years we either pay the owner the full amount owed or they take the bar and property back. This is real risky for us, but we where highly motivated and my mental state in my current job was desperate so we jumped at it. We where going to end up fixing the place up and and putting some money down up front, if we could not get a bank to loan us the money after two years we would have lost everything we invested in the business and the property. In the end we ended up paying a little more than fair market value, but we confident on the location. Once the paper work was filed and the keys where handed over I gave two days notice to UPS, actually I had to call off a couple days and the department manager called me saying that he heard that I was quitting. I have talked to several drivers about the fact that I was quitting. Half the drivers that I talked to thought I was crazy and dumb, the other have was happy that someone had the balls to finally say fuck this place and get out. Well I told the manager I was quitting and that I was handing in a letter of resignation when I came in the next day. The last day was kind of weird but walking out those doors was kind of sad, I had worked there a long time (13 years) and always thought that I work there my entire life. It was time to move forward and to start my new life. So I had the keys to the building and was ready to start the rehab work.

I was telling the wife that we could be open in about two months. That first week when I got to working on the building I soon realized this was probably going to longer than two months and I was going to need to hire some labor to help clean all the junk out of the building. I imagined I would just go up to the skate shop (Westside Skates) and find some teenager to help out. (to be cont….)