Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Thursday August 13 2015, @09:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the volunteer-labor?-that'll-never-work dept.

Chicago-based "Geek Bar"-- where bartenders dress in labcoats and serve geek-themed drinks-- has been saved from financial ruin by a combination of crowdfunding by patrons, and a sizable personal loan. But The Chicago Reader asks, Geek Bar's fans rescue it from oblivion—but was it worth saving?

It sounds like a feel-good story, something inspired by the kind of movie sometimes screened at the ten-month-old bar. You know, the ones where the scrappy outcasts band together to save their beloved sanctuary from the clutches of evil. But former employees and volunteers now wonder if the bar was worth saving.

Nine and a half months after it first began slinging Cthulhu-themed cocktails, Geek Bar Beta still feels like an experiment, one that hasn't gone according to plan. Former employees say paychecks began bouncing last fall, soon after the bar opened.

The article tells a tale of a business that is obviously loved, but plagued by mismanagement, poor employee relationships, financial woes and an over-reliance on community support and free labor. What value does the "geek" label have, when the underlining business is unsustainable? What extraordinary value does the concept bring that justifies such extraordinary efforts to keep it afloat?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday August 13 2015, @11:47PM

    by Francis (5544) on Thursday August 13 2015, @11:47PM (#222587)

    This is one of the reasons to start out with a food cart or a small restaurant that can't hold more than a half dozen tables. The real costs of running a restaurant are the rent, salary and related, the actual food and things you sell are a small part of the bill.

    Also, if you do it right, take out can be quite lucrative. Obviously, alcohol isn't going to be legal for take out in most areas, so that might be an issue, you have limited ability to use that to subsidize the other services.