Monday night in the bar business is of the Worst.Night.Ever variety. I don't vare what you tried to do, you never ran squat for money on Monday nights. Hell, in one of the giant dance halls, your over-head just to turn the lights on could run up to between $1,200 and $2,000. Take your rent, portion of the electrical bill, pro rata for the management salaries and BAM! there you are.
I don't care what you tried to do, it just wouldn't work. If you worked a Big Dance Hall, it just took too many people to make it look like anyone was there. For instance, your Occupational Capacity is rated at 1,750 people. Well, until there are 1,000 bodies in the room, you don't have any energy. One place I worked, who prided themself for being open every night, even built a false curtain wall to try to shrink the room. Nice try - no cigar.
Next, if you wanted to drive any traffic, you had to prostitute your price structure - think deep discounting of the 1.00 U-Call-It variety. Nope. Nada.
Monday Night Football - WOW, what a great idea. Yeah, everyone wants to watch a football game sitting 100 feet from the screen (doesn't matter what size it is) and listen to music blaring the background. No, you don't! Turn that damn music off - you want to The Game! Besides, MNF was only a 6 month deal, what about the rest of the year? Zero. Zilch.
So, Mondays really sucked. No one wants to come in and stand around all night. There no profit opportunity in that. The servers - waitresses, bartenders, barbacks - get paid $2.13 per hour. They survive on tips. Gotta have folks in the room to generate cash. Gotta' buy shoes for the kids and all that. Plus, the door guys would get really lazy and let in underage people and that can get you toasted in a hurry. Just standing up at the door, not really paying attention in any great detail. Then, as a manager, you had to deal with the no-show employees and whiny cry-baby call ins - Iiii'm siiiick. Yeah, your sick alright - you have a hangover from last night. I know because you were in here walking around sideways, making an ass out of yourself. No excuses! Get your ass in here and go to work!
However, there were, and still are, places that did good business on Monday Night. Usually there is one joint in town that will have all the business. A place all the Bar & Restaurant people congregated at for whatever reason. Probably because that was the place where the bartender (lower case bartender, not The Bartender) had the good dope.
Only two places I worked at ever did any business on Monday nights. The little Dallas club on Fred / Wurzbach in San Antonio was always packed. I mean packed! Full staff, $100+ in tips packed. No problem getting employees to show up to work here. I don't remember what our promotion was, it was after all ... well let's say it was a long time ago. Dallas was about 1,800 square feet front of the house area. So, it was small enough that you didn't have to put a ton of people to have any energy in the room. Our seating capacity was 250. We would stick 300+ on Monday nights. Just Dancin' & Glancin' on a little bitty dance floor, two pool tables, a small kitchen that served really good Happy Hour buffet, and a really good country music format. (Oops - forgot to tell you that most bar and restuarant people congregate at places that have the high energy dance music.) But, we did great business for whatever reason and I wasn't compaining.
The other place I worked that did business on Monday Night was the now legendary Yucatan Liquor Stand in Houston, TX. The Yuc had a beach bar theme. A mid-sized place with an outdoor patio and beach volleyball court, small kitchen that made great burger and fajitas, casual dress code, and never a cover charge. But dude, you should have been there for Monday Night. If, you've ever been to Houston, you know that there is a strip joint on every other corner (no zoning laws). Well, every titty dancer in town that didn't work on Monday Night, came into our joint. DAMN! The babe ratio was extremely high. And, if you've ever been in Houston partying, you know that the girls there are more willing / available / friendlier than anywhere else. These were down and dirty, good-time party animals. The kind that... Let's just say that good times were had by ALL. I've never seen so many beautiful wild-ass women in my entire life! Houston, TX - a friggin' GREAT PARTY TOWN!!!
Such is life on Monday Night in the bar biz.
Damn, thinking all those good-lookin' babes made me thristy - I'm gonna go slam a couple a cold ones!
Cheers!