New Bar — Business Plan

Draft 1. 2026-10-01. Build #1 of a 25-bar system. Arts District, Las Vegas.

This is the founding document. Not a pitch for one bar. A description of how the system works, using the first location to prove it.

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1. The one-page version

What it is. A bar in the Las Vegas Arts District that runs exactly like Barb's and Left Hand Path run. A liquor bar. Free pour. Best quality everything. A party bar built on taste that has already worked for twelve years.

Why it wins. Everyone in this city leaves the room half done. Big space, exposed walls, beer signs, "that's fun." It works for them because nobody there has seen better. We finish it. Complete interior design is part of the product, not an afterthought.

Why it's a system. We are not opening one bar. We are opening twenty-five. The plan, the visuals, and the four decisions below ride along into every location. Each one is independently owned. This document is the template.

The proof. Two bars, real numbers, on the table. Nine months of daily Square data, both doors, nothing invented. Combined net sales of $1,250,684 from January through September 2026.

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2. The concept

Not a new idea. An expression of what already exists in New York, carried to a new city.

• A liquor bar. Confidence in our taste, and in what has worked forever.
• Style reference: Mother's Ruin. Casual. Free pour.
• A value set we lead with in every decision. We do not hit people over the

head with it. We are just a very fun bar.

• What we do at Barb's is rare in New York and extremely accessible at the same

time. That is the whole edge. It makes sense.

The design thesis. Most bars in Vegas, off Strip, stop at half a room. We finish it. The interior is designed completely. The room matches the quality of what we sell.

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3. The market

Target: the Arts District. Specifically, the block holding Atomic Liquors, with Silver Stamp nearby. A corner location sitting between them. Square footage depends on which space lands.

The neighborhood already works. Esther's Kitchen, Ada's Wine Bar, the Velveteen Rabbit, and more. We are complementary to them, not competing.

Why this block. Atomic is a dive. Silver Stamp is beer-only, Midwest old-timers, and does well by selling nostalgia as a product. We sit between them with the full program neither one runs.

Also considered and set aside. East Las Vegas, Centennial, Summerlin. People push Henderson. The Arts District is the real choice.

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4. The product

The bar

• Liquor bar. Roughly 4-5 draft beers. 5-6 draft cocktails.
• A bubbler with a value menu.
• Fresh juice at the bar, hand juicer, made to order. The margarita is the

example: half a lime or a whole lime juiced as you ask, free-pour an ounce of triple sec, free-pour an ounce of whatever agave you want.

• A short wine list. A short but complete spirits list.
• A great cocktail list that evolves constantly. The bar team reinvents it.

It runs exactly like the New York bars, with more intentional bartending, because it is a different city and nobody there knows us yet. Everyone needs to know exactly what this bar is.

Food

Food in this city is either a restaurant or an afterthought. Ours is short and everything on it is the best quality we can get. We do not sell too much.

A dedicated cook, for sure. That person may hold a management role. There is no way around it at the business we want to do.

The food program is one of the four decisions (Section 9). It sets headcount, kitchen, floor, and the entire operating model. Four options are on the table:

The real constraint, in his words: "If you really want to make money on something, you've got to support it." A do-it-yourself menu only makes money if someone backs it with labor. The support is the real cost, not the ingredients.

Music and sound

Lots of music, executed very well. Not Top 40. If you listen to Top 40 you will not hear familiar things here. You will hear great jazz, killer soul, modern pop, electronic. People love it without knowing why.

A vintage stereo system, built as a real project. Enough power, well-placed speakers, like a listening room, but designed better than most listening rooms because most are badly built for acoustics.

The payoff: enough speakers with enough power at low volume means you can whisper your order and still hear everything beautifully. The room can talk. He believes that is rare. Thirty years around turntables and rebuilding speakers is the reason he can do it.

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5. The room and the build-out

• Design is still open. An architect for sure. A designer, maybe.
• City permitting required.
• Contractors he is already connected with. We may start there and see how it

goes.

• The method: map all of Left Hand Path, map all of Barb's, point at both as

reference, map a few other bars, then land on three different bar setups for three kinds of space we are willing to work with. Those three become the templates for every future location.

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6. The people

• About 10-15 total. The number cannot be set until square footage and the food

program are known.

• Nobody makes bad money. The goal: everyone gets health care, can buy a home,

can afford a great life on reasonable hours.

• Longevity is the point. Employees who stay forever. The model is built to make

that possible.

• A hospitality program that is its own flywheel: constantly making new events,

constantly making regulars, constantly doing things that beget themselves. Different party areas in the space.

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7. How we teach

The bar is its own curriculum. Every role is a series of owned, documented, re-recordable videos. The system is the staff, not a manual nobody reads.

• He teaches with a Moodle, then works shifts with people. Plain and simple.
• He shows them what he needs, and what their learning was supposed to really

mean.

• He takes videos and updates them constantly.
• The video rule: when someone takes over a thing, they make the first

video. At about five months of doing it, they make a new one.

• The principles: everything stems from profit first. Everything stems from

Getting Things Done, by David Allen.

Learning is measured against the bar's actual performance and a clean system of next actions. If the bar makes money and the work is visible, the teaching worked.

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8. The numbers

Everything below comes from the real Square daily extracts for both bars, January 1 through September 29, 2026. No estimates. Net sales is the headline number: items plus service charges, minus discounts. Not tips, not tax, not fees.

Nine months, both doors

Month by month, combined

The business runs a weekend. Nearly half of all net sales land Friday and Saturday. That shape drives staffing, ordering, and the music schedule.

What is not here yet

Rent, labor percentage, food cost percentage, build-out cost, and the license. None of that lives in Square. It comes from Evan and the team, and from the space once it lands.

Every projected line in the model will be marked as a guess. Nothing gets smoothed. The P&Ls will be a set, one per space template.

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Charts

Nine months of real Square data, both bars. Nothing estimated.

9. The four decisions

These are not one person's calls. They are selections of the investment team, made once there is a clear picture of the team we are working with.

1. The food program — A, B, C, or D (Section 4).
2. Square footage — set by which space lands.
3. The designer — yes or no.
4. The name — is it "Barb's" in Vegas, or something else.

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10. The system: build #1 of 25

The plan is not about one bar. It is the founding document for a replicable system.

• The same structure runs every location. Swap the inputs: rent, square footage,

market, team. Out comes bar #2 through #25.

• Three space templates, not one. Every future location matches one of them.
• Many people brought into ownership. The plan states what an owner puts in and

what an owner gets, because that is how the system grows.

• The plan, the visuals, and the four decisions ride along into every location.

Independence

The bars Evan runs are free from conglomerates and billionaires. Period. At other locations in the system, he may partner with people who want a comprehensive spirits program. He supports that. His own limited ordering is the template rule for the bars under his control, not a lecture for others.

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11. Open items

• The food program decision. The single biggest unresolved operating question.
• Square footage and the target space.
• Rent, labor percentage, food cost percentage for the Vegas model.
• Designer yes or no.
• The name.
• Confirming one capture from the last session: "comprehensive spirituality" was

almost certainly a mishearing. It needs one clean confirmation.

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Attachments

• Sales charts: 05 Visuals/ (monthly trajectory, weekday shape, daily strip,

both bars).

• Raw data: 05 Visuals/newbar_sales.json.
• The idea in his words: 01 Idea.md.
• Numbers working file: 02 Numbers.md.
• Teaching summary: 03 How I Teach.md.
• Interview record: 04 Interview Log.md.
• The channel side of the same movement: Projects/Independent Bar Movement/.