The Irish Pub Concept was created in 1992 by Guinness plc. (now Diageo) as the benchmark for developing quality Irish Pubs outside of Ireland.  Twenty-five years later, some 6,500 pubs have been opened around the world as a direct result of their guidance and expertise.

In 2013, Diageo asked a former Guinness manager to assume responsibility for the website, though their original guiding principles remain at the core of what we do. The site and its intellectual property are owned and operated by an original member of the Guinness team that worked to bring this remarkable concept to life, and the site continues to provide sound advice and direction to prospective operators.

There is no catch, here’s how it works. Most people opening pubs and restaurants make their mistakes early on and by the time they realize they have made mistakes that can put the business at risk, it’s often too late to turn back. We want to make sure that your idea and plan is built on a solid platform and that it has a realistic prospect of success. If it is not, we’ll tell you immediately and we will not pull any punches. It is not in our interest to help develop pubs that fail, so in many cases we may advise you that a pub is not a good investment for your particular circumstances.

The first step to take is to read through this website carefully. There’s plenty of free stuff to read and yes, there is premium content for which we charge a one-time only nominal fee of $19.95 to cover upkeep on the site. This allows access for a full year and we highly recommend you take up membership. After that, you can decide whether a conversation with us might be a good next step.

If we get to a point where you feel more informed and confident about moving forward, and we’ve agreed that the pub is a viable opportunity, we will offer to provide you with a commercial consulting service that helps you take your pub from the planning stage through to opening in the most efficient, economical and successful way.

Pubs have a very different ratio of food sales to beverage sales than most restaurants. Pubs maintain high food sales while also developing very healthy beverage sales at times when most restaurants are quiet….afternoons, cocktail hour and late night, for instance. Because beverage cost of sales and beverage labor cost are lower than for food, this makes pubs far more likely to be more profitable.

Your first steps will be as follows:

Finding restaurant or pub financing is a challenge in 2018 because, rightly or wrongly, it is considered high risk. The main types of financing are as follows:

1. Bank, Credit Union, SBA (small business loan)
2. Personal Equity (your own money)
3. Investors (Family, friends, business partners, high net worth individuals)

Ideally, you are looking for an existing restaurant premises which can be renovated. That way, you have existing infrastructure such as HVAC, kitchen ventilation hoods, washrooms etc. and will save some money as compared to fitting out a building from scratch.

Please check with your local beer distributor to see what marketing support might be available for your pub.

If you have restaurant or bar experience, that is certainly an advantage. If you have small business experience, that is certainly an advantage. If you do not have restaurant experience but do have small business experience than you will need to hire management who can help you through the learning curve. The qualities you will need most are a strong work ethic, a very quality-focused approach and endless patience.