#97 Aaron DeFeo: How Do You Build America's Best Hotel Bar?
He opened a bar with no sign on the door for six months. No artwork on the walls. His architect quit in the middle of the build and nobody told him for three months.
Then he won Best US Hotel Bar in America.
Most bartenders think opening their own bar is about creativity, cocktails, and a good corner location. That's why most of them never open one, and why of those who do, most who do go broke inside two years. The bartenders who actually build great bars understand something almost nobody talks about on stage: the whole game is leverage, opportunity, and surviving the build long enough to open the doors. Aaron DeFeo turned a strange, unused space in a downtown Phoenix hotel into Little Rituals, the Best US Hotel Bar in America. He did it after getting fired from a bartending job at 25, working five years at Hotel Congress for $12 an hour, running cocktail programs inside a tribal casino, and surviving a build that took years instead of simply months. This is the field manual for everything that happens between "I want my own bar" and "we just won best bar in the country." If you're a bartender, manager, brand rep, consultant, or anyone who's ever quietly pitched themselves an opening, this is the conversation you didn't know you were missing.
Expect to Learn:
* The real all-in cost of opening a craft cocktail bar in America and why your napkin math is almost certainly wrong
* The hidden line item that cost Aaron almost as much as his $100,000 liquor license
* What Aaron found in his old emails years after getting fired at 25, and what it told him about himself
* The single decision on opening day Aaron now calls the most expensive mistake of the entire build
* The exact moment during COVID when Aaron and his partner thought Little Rituals was already dead
Links:
* Little Rituals [https://littleritualsbar.com/]
* Solid Sipping [https://www.solidsipping.com/]
* Arizona Cocktail Week [https://arizonacocktailweekend.com/]
* Bitter and Twisted [https://bitterandtwistedaz.com/]
Service starts now.
Follow the show: Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/0f7LAx6NdrwnMn8ii6i7FD], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/me/podcast/serves-you-right/id1806172471], YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@Servesyouright]
I talk to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in bars. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess that can be a life working in bars, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. Check out the Podcast Website Here [https://servesyourightpod.com/] and get in touch with me!
Classic Episodes You May Like:
* Doug Frost MW MS [https://servesyourightpod.com/products/22-doug-frost-ms-mw-what-it-really-takes-to-launch-a-winery-in-a-pandemic]
* Jeffrey Morgenthaler [https://servesyourightpod.com/products/23-jeffrey-morgenthaler-a-master-bartender-s-guide-to-staying-sane-in-a-25-martini-world]
* ET: Entrepreneur (and creator of Surfer on Acid) [https://servesyourightpod.com/products/31-et-the-man-behind-dirty-sue-surfer-on-acid-and-the-biggest-fan-of-jack-you-ll-ever-find]
* Edward Slingerland's Masterful work on Intoxication [https://servesyourightpod.com/products/39-edward-slingerland-why-society-needs-alcohol-more-than-you-think]
* Andrew Hurley of Vegas.Wine [https://servesyourightpod.com/products/46-andrew-hurley-the-man-who-built-a-vegas-wine-empire]
* Chris Tunstall of A Bar Above [https://servesyourightpod.com/products/64-chris-tunstall-from-cleaning-restaurants-to-a-bar-above]
* Tony Abou-Ganim [https://open.spotify.com/episode/3WtQ5Jsd8T7RJbpN5bCfHh?si=x-Y_hmwyQOyrQqtx8grFZQ]
* Bobby "G" Gleason [https://open.spotify.com/episode/1JTz6WzpFGVw3odAv914m3?si=Uk47i1-1TM6aKFeAzVt5pg]
As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
