The Liberty
With over thirty restaurants and bars in a three block radius, The Liberty, located on 35th between 5th and 6th avenue, lies in a highly competitive bar and restaurant market. The area is surrounded by offices, a quick walk from the Empire State building, a block away from Penn Station and a short stroll from Grand Central, where over a million people commute through daily.
The majority of the bars in the neighborhood are Irish pubs and sports bars that offer happy hour and comfort food, like wings, burgers, and fries to an after work crowd. On 35th street between 5th and 6th avenues alone there are three Irish pubs, seven restaurants, two rooftop bars, and two recently opened upscale venues.
The Liberty opened its doors in May 2012, and is owned by Glenn Treacher, a Welshman with over thirty years experience in the nightlife industry in New York City, and Eddy Buckingham, a young entrepreneur from Sydney, Australia. The concept for the bar was to fill a gap of upscale casual establishments in the neighborhood, which according to Mr. Treacher the area demanded.
Unlike many of the bars in the neighborhood, The Liberty has no neon signs or banners to identify it to street traffic. Instead, two thick ten-foot French style doors guard the entrance, and large glass windows offer a clear view of the interior.
Once inside, eighteen-foot ceilings with over one thousand black and white pictures ranging from John D. Rockefeller to Teddy Roosevelt, to Marilyn Monroe surround the 2,500-sqaure foot space. The focal point of the venue is a 34 foot long black granite island bar in the middle that can seat up to forty people comfortably. “Island bars are not found too often in NYC,” says Mr. Buckingham “given the tight space and high value of real estate in Manhattan, architecturally Island bars do not maximize space.”
While the bar has the capacity to accommodate over three hundred people, its immense size becomes a disadvantage when it only has fifty or sixty, “bodies breed bodies” says Mr. Treacher, “when the venue looks empty from the outside it scares off potential customers who peak at the dense Irish pub next door with only twenty patrons.” The Liberty responds to this challenge by placing customers as close to the entrance as possible, giving pedestrians peaking through the windows a feeling that the place is full.
Another struggle The Liberty faces, and according to Mr. Treacher one that all venues face, is inventory control. Besides rent, which runs The Liberty approximately $30,000 a month, the supply of food and liquor are the bar’s second and third largest yearly expense at around $10,000-$20,000 a month. Unlike rent though, inventory often goes unaccounted: it can be stolen or wasted. According to Mr. Treacher who has ran successful sports bars, nightclubs, and restaurants, “inventory control, will either make you, or break you.” With the help of new tracking technology, The Liberty has been able to decrease its lost inventory by seven percent over the last few months, but is still slightly above the industry standard of ten percent.
Its struggles aside, The Liberty has been largely successful reaching its revenue expectations in the first twenty months. Mr. Treacher expects the bar’s managers to reach a minimum of $65,000 in revenue a week, anything below requires an explanation, and anything above merits a management steak dinner.
Another struggle of any business, especially in the hospitality arena where many employees remain disinterested in a long-term career in the field, is staffing says Mr. Buckingham. The Liberty has twenty front of house staff (server, bartenders, hosts), and twenty back of house (kitchen, bar support) personnel.
Everyone who works at the liberty is a friend of friend or as they would say, a “mate of a mate.” The front of house staff is mostly from Australia, which can be heard from a quick interaction with the staff. Since opening, Mr. Buckingham claims he has not had difficulty finding high quality reliable staff, as “ for every Aussie leaving the city, two are coming in.”
The Australian staff gives the place its vibe “When people come into The Liberty, they feel as though they have entered exotic territory,” says Sara, a regular at the bar. The “laid back” Australian feel, along with the upscale environment give The Liberty the extra edge it needs to attract a regular following from the office buildings in the area. Mr. Williams, who works for a fashion design company in the Empire State Building, claims “The Lib” (what he calls it), is “the best bar in the area,” and “loves the Australian accents.” He swears by the Brooklyn Cocktail, a specialty at the bar, and comes to The Liberty almost every Friday evening with his co-workers.
The competition in the area keeps increasing as more entrepreneurs catch on to the demand. Since The Liberty opened its doors, two new upscale venues have opened up on the same block and four more in a three-block radius. Mr. Buckingham says he has no worries though, and sees the upscale competition in the neighborhood as an asset to his business because it “legitimizes the area as a going out destination, which creates heavier and trendier foot traffic.” He goes on to say, “even with all the competition, midtown has enough foot traffic to fill up any bar, weather the bar can turn a profit is another question, and luckily we have.”