Strategy: Quality Company

Process:

            After running a gallery for 15 years, many next door to an excellent cocktail bar, I noticed the power of the gallery to create community and drive traffic to the bar next door. I conducted research with Qualtrics and the NEA and was able to prove the economic impact of arts visitors and artists outside of what they do directly as artists and galleries. It lead to a TEDX Salt Lake City talk and to the formation of a specific and revolutionary model of combining a bar and an art gallery to be mutually supportive. The revenues from the bar support the art activities and the art activities drive sales at the bar. 

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In addition to the research done about the economic impact of art and artists, I researched five companies based on similar concepts around the world (in Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin, and London) and I looked at the way more typical efforts to do similar things don't maximize success (such as the hyper local focus and lack of dedicated gallery space at some coffee shops). I also interviewed bartenders, managers, and owners of a dozen local bars to understand the best practices of bar ownership.

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I then developed the business plan, pitch deck, interior design for the bar, and ultimately opened the business. Check out the plan for Quality Company below. Quality Company, the name, comes from the former life of the building and is related to the tradition of dive bar names. It's a pun.

 

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