# Opening a bar in Souk Al Bahar



## ArnieJJ (Dec 30, 2016)

Been looking at different venues, bars and spaces for lease in Dubai for the past week. I just wanted to crowdsource an opinion on what people think about Souk Al Bahar. 

From two days of observing it seems as if their is very little footfall, but the bars are doing OK, customers seem to know which bar they want to go to so customer bases have been built up. The owners are asking for ridiculous key money, and with the lack of footfall it doesn't seem viable. It's do-able but with a lot of hard graft. 

Other friends have told me that places open and close all the time in souk. 

The location is great and the rental price is also really good, and it's negotiable with the Emaar, it' either that or to consider somewhere in Jumierah1/ Bur Dubai or Deira. 

Also thoughts:tea:eace: on a british bar?


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## TallyHo (Aug 21, 2011)

This town needs another British bar?

Ok..... 

Knowing nothing about the industry, my only advice would be what appears apparent. Identify your market first. Figure out who you want your clientele / patrons to be. Then place the bar in the most convenient location for them.

I can't see a British bar working in Souk al Bahar because the clientele who frequent British bars around Dubai tend to be either older blokes or young British expats (see McGettingans WTC and JLT as your competitor). I have never noticed both groups spending much time in Souk al Bahar, which tends to attract a more grown up, better heeled clientele looking for a more grown up atmosphere. The young and drunk crowd centres on the Marina. The old bloke with a Filipino girlfriend are pretty scattered but tend to go for the cheaper hotel bars.

The other impression I've had of Souk al Bahar is that it's lost a lot of popularity among affluent western Dubai expats, partly because of the difficulty of getting to Downtown during prime drinking hours - happy hours and weekends. Traffic is a nightmare. The preference is for Madinat or the beachfront hotels. The exception, however, are affluent non-western expats who still enjoy dressing up and going out to a 'nice' venue in Downtown. But I don't think this crowd would support a British style pub. 

There is already Nezesaussi Grill opposite Souk al Bahar that would be your competitor and it's an established venue with a popular menu and sports bar atmosphere.

In short, know your target market and find the location that matches their needs. If I were going after the young professional expat crowd, I wouldn't do another boring British pub but something more upmarket and creative, like Lock Stock and Barrel, which is insanely popular despite an odd location and elevator ride!


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## ArnieJJ (Dec 30, 2016)

Thanks for the Tip Tallyho, I know a British Bar probably sounds cliche. What i've been looking at is upmarket smaller bars with nice decor. But like always the issue is that these bars are a so common they don't stand out. The venue in the Souk is themed around Oysters and Wine, but only last night I saw that the upstairs of the Souk has multiple bars serving seafood and they're award winning/chefs.

I've not taken a look at anything past the Burj so I'll go do some digging around the Marina and see what is popular among the expat and younger crowds there


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## TallyHo (Aug 21, 2011)

How long have you been in Dubai?

I certainly wouldn't rush into opening any F&B venue until I understood the city and its markets extremely well. Truth be told, there probably is a glut in the bar market these days. Identify the ones that are very popular and packed all the time and try to figure out why. Location? Atmosphere? Food? Clientele? Residents versus tourists? Other demographics? Costs? 

People in Dubai have become (or quickly become) quite spoilt by high quality venues so they really do expect the bells and whistles in decor and atmosphere.


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## Chocoholic (Oct 29, 2012)

Oh gosh not another 'high-end' place. What the place REALLY needs is a mid-range, friendly pub type venue. Without the blaring music, so people can actually sit and chat over a pint and some decent food.


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## TallyHo (Aug 21, 2011)

The difficulty is that the alcohol requirements restricts the available venues and there's a cost associated with it, so by default it pushes the market towards higher end places. 

But there are a few other ones that fit your category. Long's on SZR. Boston Bar in Jumeirah Rotana. Crown and Lion in TECOM. Reform at the Lakes is also quite popular and it's more family oriented but I've gone there a number of times with singles friends for a casual drink/meal without destroying our eardrums. 





Chocoholic said:


> Oh gosh not another 'high-end' place. What the place REALLY needs is a mid-range, friendly pub type venue. Without the blaring music, so people can actually sit and chat over a pint and some decent food.


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## ArnieJJ (Dec 30, 2016)

TallyHo said:


> How long have you been in Dubai?
> 
> I certainly wouldn't rush into opening any F&B venue until I understood the city and its markets extremely well. Truth be told, there probably is a glut in the bar market these days. Identify the ones that are very popular and packed all the time and try to figure out why. Location? Atmosphere? Food? Clientele? Residents versus tourists? Other demographics? Costs?
> 
> People in Dubai have become (or quickly become) quite spoilt by high quality venues so they really do expect the bells and whistles in decor and atmosphere.



Truth be told i've been in Dubai with my business partners for about 3 weeks in total. We got burned by a slimy bar owner who gave false accounting figures and we lost a very small deposit. Ever since then I was shipped here to research literally everything and have been doing exactly that since day 1. I dont have experience on the food side of things, but back in London i've worked and managed a lot of decent bars and a few high profile pop ups, so bar and management are my strong points. All of those factors seem to be important. The higher end stuff I dont think will be possible. I checked out Lock, Stock and Barrel, it's great and something you'd see in London but those setup costs are enormous as well as all of the fees and expenses that come along with operating a bar, emirati sponsorship ect, it's just too risky and there's a lot of obstacles potentially in the way. 

I'm looking at a venue at the Mercure Gold Hotel, it's setup as a lounge bar. Another place is similar to Time Out at Ramee Royal Hotel, don't know if youve heard of it but it's the kind of chill out pub/sports bar which is low/mid range when it comes to prices. This is more viable nd the operating costs are a lot lower and the licencing comes under the hotel so there's no trickiness with finding an emerati sponsor (who we won't really know well), that then owns 51% of our company. 

I'm leaning towards the latter and starting small, maybe later on thinking about trying to reach into marina side, but for now the minimum asking prices are around 3m-20m (for nightclubs anyway). 

Bur Dubai/Deira/Al Satwa- Small dance bar/night club venues from around 700k-900k which have bland decor, and then sports lounge offers from 900k-1.2k with zero customer base, all of which are asking for key money roughly the same price. 

Sports lounges with bad management, and there are a lot of them, really are struggling to make a decent amount of profit, most seem to be bouncing along month by month as they fight to cover the rent of the lease and expenses, thats why I've been able to view quite a few places around Bur Dubai and Deira but I don't want to get stung with something that has zero footfall and customer base for a really high price. Obviously people see expats and they throw a random number at you, even higher than what they've advertised. On top of this they say that the place hasn't been running so theres no books that you can look at to see if the business is viable and what return an investment might bring you. The other pitfall is that theres a random reason why the bar or club is for lease but its quite obvious that it's because it was illegally sublet and they were kicked out, or because of bad management/no patrons thus running negative. 

If you know of any brokers or estate agents throw them my way. 


Pint and some decent grub sounds good to me.


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## QOFE (Apr 28, 2013)

Chocoholic said:


> Oh gosh not another 'high-end' place. What the place REALLY needs is a mid-range, friendly pub type venue. Without the blaring music, so people can actually sit and chat over a pint and some decent food.


Agreed! There aren't many mid-range nice bars here. Far too many bars/pubs see it fit to get a "DJ" in and the only thing one can do in such a venue is drink-drink-drink and dance as they music is far too loud to be able to have any kind of conversation.

You can't go wrong with a decent happy hour either... Don't employ "reception" staff that will pretend that the place is busy no matter what and demand a reservation. I've had enough of snotty places like that. What happened to spontaneity?
If you did have bouncers good at spotting prossies and swiftly removing them you're on to a winner!
Decent drinks and decent food (nothing pretentious but not greasy grub either).
Am I asking for too much? hwell:


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## ArnieJJ (Dec 30, 2016)

QOFE said:


> Agreed! There aren't many mid-range nice bars here. Far too many bars/pubs see it fit to get a "DJ" in and the only thing one can do in such a venue is drink-drink-drink and dance as they music is far too loud to be able to have any kind of conversation.
> 
> You can't go wrong with a decent happy hour either... Don't employ "reception" staff that will pretend that the place is busy no matter what and demand a reservation. I've had enough of snotty places like that. What happened to spontaneity?
> If you did have bouncers good at spotting prossies and swiftly removing them you're on to a winner!
> ...


Factors such as rent, possibly licencing and expenses come into play as TallyHo said end up making a concept like that hardly viable. If the rent can be bartered down then it is a possibility, maybe with a very well illustrated concept and business plan you can convince hotel owners.

I may be heading to the Marina tonight so i'll see what the darkness brings


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## QOFE (Apr 28, 2013)

Some other places to check out that seem to work well:
Cocktail Kitchen, JLT
Nola, JLT
Copper Dog, JBR

Check out the competition online with seeing what's out there on these:
Time Out Dubai
What's on Dubai
Shortlist
Loving Dubai


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## BedouGirl (Sep 15, 2011)

The problem with Dubai is (to quote Project Runway) one day you're in, the next you're not (or something like that). First you need to decide what sort of venue you want and then you need to find venues here that fall into the same genre and see how long they have been open and establish whether or not they are still popular. 

I am not sure Dubai will give you longevity. People here get bored very quickly....


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## TallyHo (Aug 21, 2011)

Just a couple of thoughts:

There are a number of long-standing venues. Barasti has been around 'forever'. As has McG in WTC and now JLT. Long's been around ever since I've been in Dubai. Boston Bar is another old expat standby. Belgian Beer is very popular and holds its own. 

It seems that there's a list of 25 or so bars that have been around for a long time and are popular despite the expat churn or even location. The rest of the bars tend to come and go. Some develop the flavour of the month and sustain themselves for a while before eventually falling to the wayside. My personal experience is that I go out to the same half dozen or so bars from that short list over and over again with the occasional visit to a hot new spot and I suspect this is the case for many expats from my demographic. 

What I have seen over the years is fewer and fewer trips to the Bur Dubai/Satwa side of town compared to when I first came to Dubai. Western expats rarely go down to the hotel bars in that part of town unless they're specifically slumming it or going to a venue noted for music such as the club at the Seaview Hotel or Music room. The real target clientele for a bar in old Dubai is going to be the resident population of the area - Indians mostly and the Arabs/Pakistanis who drink alcohol. And there's a limit to it as well as their expenditures. Most of the bars down there are sad affairs and same-same. Does that present an opportunity for something new? Possibly, but it probably represents a big challenge for you, likely because it seems most of the frequenters of these bars are nursing a whisky or beer or two rather than ordering drinks by the bucket and spending hundreds of AED per head. It clearly can't be the cost factor, drinks are often already cheaper compared to the New Dubai bars but that's not a draw, apparently. In my time in Dubai I've seen people become increasingly localised, staying in their section of the city rather than crossing town for a night out. Marina people 'never' go to Bur Dubai/Deira; Downtown people like to boast they rarely go to the Marina, the Jumeirah/Umm Suqeim (affluent professionals in villas) tend to frequent Madinat and the beachfront hotels, the Mirdiff exiles tend to stick to Festival City. 

The high spenders of Dubai, and I include people who are willing to spend 150 AED on a night out, still have high expectations. This town does spoil people with its bling bling so even among people claiming they just want a laid back venue, are still looking for something 'nice'. They want a nice setting, a nice venue, good and prompt service, none of which will come cheaply as you know. 

If I were to open a bar in Dubai along the lines of what you're thinking - a laid back Brit style pub, I'd look for an area with a concentration of western expats but is under served. Look at the new areas on the south side of town. Sports City, JVC, JVT, Motor City etc. Is there a hotel around there where you can open a bar? Or one of the golf courses? It'll never be the Marina or attract the Marina crowd but could draw from young singles and middle aged couples living around there who don't want to fight the crowd/traffic to the Marina on the weekends. Still a gamble, however.

QOFE named a few popular bars/lounges in JLT, which could be another good place to open a bar. JLT's developing into an alternative to the Marina for expats who don't want to deal with the crowds or tourism of the Marina proper and has lots of younger expats as well as professional expats who'd appreciate something within walking distance. There is already McGettigans in JLT and that place is very popular but a second Brit style pub may still work.

TECOM (a.k.a. Barsha Heights) is another location where a bar could be successful. You already have competitors in the area but it's a location with many residents who'd like something with walking distance and also draws in people from Emirates Living/Greens next door, and is handier to Sports City/Motor City people compared to the Marina. Plenty of hotels with possible spaces. As a British pub your competitor would be the Crown & Lion but if you can manage to offer a similar vibe but slightly different as a draw, it could work. This goes back to my first post: figure out your target demographics first and build the bar around it. But remember, Dubai is not London so be careful in making assumptions about the demographics until you've talked to many people.


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## BedouGirl (Sep 15, 2011)

Nicely put TallyHo! Actually there's a new hotel opening soon in Motor City in the mall that's also shortly to open across the road. It's going to be four star and I can't remember the operator but not only would the catchment be MC, Sports City, JVT, JVC, Remraam, etc., but there's also the autodrome customers.


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## The Rascal (Aug 6, 2014)

I agree with Motor/Sports City, even IMPZ, it galls me that the hotel behind where I live is dry, such a pain to go anywhere. 

Now open a bar in one of the hotels around here, do a Happy Hour at 25-27 a pint, burgers at 49 and you're laughing.

I've also wondered about opening a Craft Beer bar where the beer is brewed on the premises - now that really would be something, but I doubt it will happen due to the Government owning and _controlling _the alcohol imports here.


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## Njx537 (Jan 27, 2017)

For the Ranches/Motorciry/Sportcity you have the following situation:

Ranches: Maison Mathis and Ranches Golf club, clientele from the Ranches itself plus Motorcity and Remraam people mainly - Mudon, Sustainable City and Reem communities will ideally go to this area for booze as there's nothing closer

Studio City: Polo and Equestrian Club; same as above

Motorcity: nothing serving booze at the moment, they will open a Park Inn by Radisson in 2017. They tried to open a place serving alcohol in the autodrome last year, didn't go well (venue and food quality were both dreadful)

Sport City: has Kickers for people living around and the Els Club for people living in Victory Heights

IMPZ: There should be something in the golf club nearby, nothing catering the buildings in the area.

I would look into the Motorcity are specifically, given the high number of expats with nothing on a walking distance, with a growing community with good spending possibilities.


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## Mr Rossi (May 16, 2009)

I hope your investor has very deep pockets. My first piece of advice - hire an advisor with extensive knowledge and experience of operating pubs in the region.


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## Redindxb43 (Mar 1, 2015)

Please open a non smoking one with cheap decent spirit/beer. None of this cheap vodka that cost AED45 a pop


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## ArnieJJ (Dec 30, 2016)

Thanks for the advice coming in. I took a visit down to sports city. Maybe the reason why there are no bars is because the customer service at the reception office is so bad. We turned up and drove around for about 15 minutes to look at stuff. Then asked for directions. We found the office but there is not really any signage. The road to the office wasnt even completed! 

Got into the reception to see a glum faced receptionist not really giving a toss. She pressed a button on her phone twice and no one answered. So we say down waiting for about an hour before asking again, at that point she was doing her nails. We asked if she could try again but there was no answer, so after all of that we didnt manage to speak to a single person. A 10 second walk to the estate managers office would have sufficed. 

I got a card but I have a feeling that opening something in sports city would be impossible with working attitudes like that.. ill give the card a call.

No one seems to be bothered.

- I dont see why you cant brew beer here. As long as it gets taxed by the government and sold by them officially they'd probably be up for it, you'd just need a local friend in a high place, or someone that knows one to push it through. They already import crafts, i saw beavertown cans in a bar in JLT bought a smile to my face. 

- Hiring an advisor might be a good move, these days everyone is a self-proclaimed broker/advisor so not too sure where to look. I've had shady fast people with decent estate property websites looking the part asking for x5 the value of a business. 

- Does anyone know of any plastic moulding/injection moulding factories in UAE?


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## Chocoholic (Oct 29, 2012)

TallyHo said:


> The difficulty is that the alcohol requirements restricts the available venues and there's a cost associated with it, so by default it pushes the market towards higher end places.
> 
> But there are a few other ones that fit your category. Long's on SZR. Boston Bar in Jumeirah Rotana. Crown and Lion in TECOM. Reform at the Lakes is also quite popular and it's more family oriented but I've gone there a number of times with singles friends for a casual drink/meal without destroying our eardrums.


Go to all of these places - apart from Reform they're all a bit divey. They are the 'old skool' expat hangouts we went to 12 years a go lol


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## Mr Rossi (May 16, 2009)

Please don't take this the wrong way but your lack of experience regarding the culture, local business practices and what will work in the F&B market will result in an extremely costly learning curve. And that's in a sector where the corporate hotel chains and large holding companies themselves often fail in. 

It's not villains and shooters but there is a reason why the same 20 or so venues print money year on year while others come and go with the tides. You don't need to hire an advisor, just find a few experienced F&B managers willing to give up some coalface anecdotes for the price of a dinner.


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