Background: Cafe Francais Bar Americain

At 34 years old, I decided that if I ever wanted to see what it was like to work for myself, I had better get moving. The idea of owning a bar had been trotting around my head for a few years. In Lyon, I met someone who had the same idea, so we went into partnership. After several possible purchases fell through, we finally found something in April, 1999. It was a bankrupted restaurant / bar in Aix-les-Bains (Savoie) France. We bought it in an auction, renovated it and opened "Cafe Francais Bar Americain", no longer a restaurant, in July, 1989.

We came up to speed pretty quickly, because the young crowd in this town of 25,000 people really liked our Happy Hour! Over the 15 years that we operated the bar, the regular customer base shifted around some, but we still had a solid core who were with us from the beginning until the end. It was 90% a local group, from 16 years old (legal in France for beer and wine) to 80 years old, with the biggest part between 20 and 30 years old. I really appreciated most of them. There were, of course, a few whom I would rather not have known. A lot of our customers are still very good friends. I'm happy to say that more than a few couples formed in our establishment, and more than a few marriages occurred.

We were definitely a "beer" bar. We sold 15,000 litres (about 3,750 gallons) of draft beer a year. For a place that only has 28 seats inside and 20 outside during the summer, that's not bad. We also sold a lot of white wine, bottled beer, coffee, and "pastis"(the REAL French aperitif). We did sandwiches and ice cream, too.

The thing that I missed was travel. Running a bar is not too difficult, but it takes up a lot of time. We were open 13 hours a day, six days a week. Add to that the time for the accounting, trips to the bank, purchasing, cleaning and maintenance. We ran the place by ourselves; just the two of us. And we couldn't really close very often. In 15 years we had two weeks of vacation. (We did close for holidays, however.) With all of that, my travel was very restricted.

What did I gain out of my time here? I learned how to run my own business. I also learned patience, accounting, purchasing, listening skills (the major asset needed for ALL barmen), maintenance skills, crisis management (including staying financial viable, crowd control and how to deal with vandalism), and how to work in a partnership.

I also gained an unacceptable alcohol level. And I stagnated some, too. After a couple of years, you learn very little in this activity.

We sold the cafe in July, 2004, to a couple of former customers! They have now changed the orientation towards a rum bar. They seem to be very happy in their endeavor.