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Cheers to all worried expat saloonkeeps who stare at empty barstools
By Sean Maguire |
July 10, 2009, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THERE is an ill wind blowing through the open doors of many a bar in Shanghai these days and it is one which fails to cool the worried brows of their expat owners as they anxiously contemplate empty bar stools and idle staff.
The current economic downturn has taken its toll upon many sectors within the retail industry in Shanghai, but none more conspicuously than the pubs and bars that once opened like flowers in springtime to cater for the seemingly unending throng of foreigners streaming into Shanghai. But not any more.
The shrewder operators have all their cards in place and have created sustainable business models around meaningful offerings to their clientele, but simply having an English-language legend above the door does not cut it anymore.
Those days are long gone and for those bar owners who believed that the route to success lay in simply showing up for the party, the rude awakening came some months ago and they are still pacing their pristine floors in disbelief.
The best of them will dig deep and try to ride out the lull. Times have been good enough for long enough for, as any saloon bar economist will tell you, drinking can be an expensive hobby in Shanghai.
As a man of modest thirst myself, I am unable to comment on the exact cost of taking a bar as the locus of one's social life, but at a cost of a least 50 yuan (US$7)for a pint of beer and more for a glass of decent wine, one is almost compelled to lull oneself into a state of benign intoxication in order to countenance the final bill (the logic of this argument, utterly flawed though it is, will be no doubt familiar to the aforementioned bar room economists).
When times were good in the liquor trade, they were very good. Business just kept rolling in no matter what was on offer; strategic errors were swallowed up in the tsunamis of cash that flooded the tills and shortcomings in management style were affectionately dismissed as mere eccentricities.
But when times got tough, the less adept owner/managers were left alone at the bar to ponder their shortcomings over another G and T as the last customer stumbled out of the door and the cold light of a Shanghai dawn streamed in through the dusty, unwashed windows.
Playing the maitre'd cum primus inter pares in your own establishment is always a risky affair. By encouraging people to identify the business' public face with his own persona, the bar owner infuses his commercial offering with his own particular personal idiosyncrasies.
When this is done well, it can be the key to a bar's success, but when the owner/manager has a less than certain grip upon his own personality (if he is his own best customer, for example) problems are inevitable.
This is particularly true of those self-appointed cynosures who believe that the success of their establishment was somehow related to their unique charm, their coruscating acumen or the fact that they were simply good chaps adored and respected by all: that it was all about them.
The good times served to reinforce this hubris - every clink of glass against glass, the vibrant thrum of conversation, the climate of good feeling and bon homie were all testament to their inimitable charisma and cleverness.
But how things have changed, and how quickly. The sense of anxiety under which some bar owners now labor is palpable. Desperation has a nasty habit of feeding upon itself and in so doing it sends out the most unappealing of distress calls.
Costs are cut, service standards drop and the owner's greetings have a touch of the maniacal about them.
There are some great bars in Shanghai run by shrewd and creative owners who manage their business' in a proactive and considered way and these will continue to prosper while the chill wind of economic reality blows away the chaff and drives out complacency, indolence and artlessness. Let the good times roll.
(The author is counsel of AllBright Law Offices in Shanghai. The views are his own. His e-mail: sbmaguire@allbrightlaw.com.)
The current economic downturn has taken its toll upon many sectors within the retail industry in Shanghai, but none more conspicuously than the pubs and bars that once opened like flowers in springtime to cater for the seemingly unending throng of foreigners streaming into Shanghai. But not any more.
The shrewder operators have all their cards in place and have created sustainable business models around meaningful offerings to their clientele, but simply having an English-language legend above the door does not cut it anymore.
Those days are long gone and for those bar owners who believed that the route to success lay in simply showing up for the party, the rude awakening came some months ago and they are still pacing their pristine floors in disbelief.
The best of them will dig deep and try to ride out the lull. Times have been good enough for long enough for, as any saloon bar economist will tell you, drinking can be an expensive hobby in Shanghai.
As a man of modest thirst myself, I am unable to comment on the exact cost of taking a bar as the locus of one's social life, but at a cost of a least 50 yuan (US$7)for a pint of beer and more for a glass of decent wine, one is almost compelled to lull oneself into a state of benign intoxication in order to countenance the final bill (the logic of this argument, utterly flawed though it is, will be no doubt familiar to the aforementioned bar room economists).
When times were good in the liquor trade, they were very good. Business just kept rolling in no matter what was on offer; strategic errors were swallowed up in the tsunamis of cash that flooded the tills and shortcomings in management style were affectionately dismissed as mere eccentricities.
But when times got tough, the less adept owner/managers were left alone at the bar to ponder their shortcomings over another G and T as the last customer stumbled out of the door and the cold light of a Shanghai dawn streamed in through the dusty, unwashed windows.
Playing the maitre'd cum primus inter pares in your own establishment is always a risky affair. By encouraging people to identify the business' public face with his own persona, the bar owner infuses his commercial offering with his own particular personal idiosyncrasies.
When this is done well, it can be the key to a bar's success, but when the owner/manager has a less than certain grip upon his own personality (if he is his own best customer, for example) problems are inevitable.
This is particularly true of those self-appointed cynosures who believe that the success of their establishment was somehow related to their unique charm, their coruscating acumen or the fact that they were simply good chaps adored and respected by all: that it was all about them.
The good times served to reinforce this hubris - every clink of glass against glass, the vibrant thrum of conversation, the climate of good feeling and bon homie were all testament to their inimitable charisma and cleverness.
But how things have changed, and how quickly. The sense of anxiety under which some bar owners now labor is palpable. Desperation has a nasty habit of feeding upon itself and in so doing it sends out the most unappealing of distress calls.
Costs are cut, service standards drop and the owner's greetings have a touch of the maniacal about them.
There are some great bars in Shanghai run by shrewd and creative owners who manage their business' in a proactive and considered way and these will continue to prosper while the chill wind of economic reality blows away the chaff and drives out complacency, indolence and artlessness. Let the good times roll.
(The author is counsel of AllBright Law Offices in Shanghai. The views are his own. His e-mail: sbmaguire@allbrightlaw.com.)
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