What if your concept should have been designed backwards, starting from the check average you need?
Ariel Arce had 16 seats and no way to predict what anyone would spend. So she solved for the number first. Sixty five dollars a head, two turns a night. Then she designed a guest experience to deliver it, down to a rule that every song has to be three minutes long.
In this conversation, we get into why she has refused to charge what the market would pay for nearly ten years, why she now plans the closing date of a business before it opens, and how the real asset in her SoHo townhouse turned out to be the three floors themselves.
If you built your concept first and hoped the numbers would follow, this one’s going to give you a better blueprint.
That’s Ariel Arce. To learn more about Tokyo Record Bar, visit tokyorecordbar.com.
The Playbook Takeaways
- Solve for the number before you design the concept. Arce set sixty-five dollars a head and two turns a night first, then built a guest experience capable of delivering it.
- Use constraints as operating tools. A rule that every song runs three minutes is what keeps a sixteen-seat room turning on schedule.
- Plan the ending at the beginning. She now sets a closing date before a business opens, and treats the three floors of the SoHo townhouse as the durable asset rather than any one concept.
Want the systems behind ideas like these? Josh teaches them in a free 5-day restaurant marketing masterclass at Restaurant Business School.
Keep going: how to build a restaurant business plan · restaurant concepts and ideas worth stealing · restaurant profitability fundamentals
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About the Author: Josh Kopel is a Michelin-awarded restaurateur, host of the Full Comp podcast, and creator of the Restaurant Scaling System, which helps independent owners grow profitable restaurants through AI-powered marketing. More about Josh · Learn with Josh
