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Jun 10 •
Welcome to Bar Builders Academy — Start Here
I'm James. I built five of Seattle's busiest bars and did over $30M in sales — and I never bartended a day in my life. This is the room I wish I'd had when I was starting. Here's how to get the most out of it: 1. Introduce yourself below — where you are (dreaming, building, or open), and what you're working on. 2. Go to the Classroom — the free course walks you through concept, site selection, leases, buildout, team, and your first 90 days. Start at Lesson 1. 3. Post your #1 question — about anything: a lease clause, a hiring problem, a number that doesn't add up. I read everything and answer personally. No gurus. No theory. No upsell. Just operators building real bars. Build Bars. Build Legacy.
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Jun 10 •
DISCUSSION PROMPT (low-friction, gets replies)
5. DISCUSSION PROMPT Title: What's the bar that made you want to do this? Every operator I know has one — the place that made them think "I want to build something like this." For me it was watching my dad run his restaurant. Same guy on the floor as he was at home. No ego, no power-tripping. People lit up when he walked in. What's yours? Drop it below. 👇
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Jun 10 •
Your lease is the most important deal you'll ever sign
More bars have been quietly killed by a bad lease than by bad food. The rent number everyone fixates on isn't even the dangerous part — it's the clauses nobody reads: personal guarantees, CAM charges that balloon, no relocation protection, renewal terms that hand all the leverage to the landlord. You negotiate the lease once, and you live with it for ten years. Get it wrong and no amount of great operating saves you. When you're close to signing, bring it here first. I'll tell you what to watch for.
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Jun 10 •
The number that predicts whether your bar survives year three
Most bars don't fail because of bad drinks or a bad location. They fail because the owner never knew their prime cost — your cost of goods plus labor, as a percentage of sales. If you don't know that number every single week, you're flying blind. The operators who make it past year three are the ones who treat it like a heartbeat — checked constantly, acted on fast. What's your prime cost right now? If you don't know it, that's your first assignment. Drop a comment if you want help figuring out where yours should land.
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Jun 10 •
Who I am and why I built this
13 years. 5 bars. $30 million in lifetime sales. Millions of shots poured across Seattle's busiest taverns. At our peak we ran 120 team members. But here's the part that matters: I walked into five banks with a suit, a plan, and a spreadsheet. All five said no. So I sold my condo to fund the first bar — wife pregnant, everything on the line. Nobody taught me the lease, the numbers, the team, or how to survive the first 90 days. I learned it the hard way, with real money on the table. That's why this exists. Everything I got wrong, you get to skip. Ask me anything.
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Build profitable bars, packed events, and real hospitality systems — from an operator who built 5 bars and did $30M+ in sales.
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