When you're finished, bars are not inherently profitable. You got to work at them to make them profitable.Jon Taffer
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The right personality with a weak resume can be filled in. That's the employee who will become great.Jon Taffer
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I've traveled the world, and as an America,n I get insulted when people say American businesses aren't respected overseas. Look at how our food and beverage companies do around the world. We are regarded as the best at this. A lot of what we do here is exportable, and I don't think there's anybody that does it better in the whole world.Jon Taffer
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Don't build a bar for yourself. Build it for your customers. It's all about them: the walls, the finishes, the textures, the food, the beverages, literally everything has to be for them.Jon Taffer
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Honestly, if I could be anything, I'd love to be a small-business authority type of person.Jon Taffer
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I can't believe the sense of community here, the amount of pride the people who run this city have in Las Vegas. They are wonderful.Jon Taffer
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What I love about Vegas is that we have the mountains and the Strip. There is always something to do.Jon Taffer
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There has been a black hole in the bar business in Las Vegas, particularly on the Strip in tourist areas.Jon Taffer
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The wrong personality with the greatest resume in a business will not grow that business.Jon Taffer
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If I'm your boss, and I truly want you to be successful... I'm inherently going to teach you. I'm inherently going to correct your mistakes. I'm inherently going to spend time with you. I'm inherently going to lead you.Jon Taffer
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When I was running the Troubadour, there was this transition from the classic singer/songwriter Jackson Browne types to bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, and Fear. Those are just some that come to mind. Oh, and Adam Ant! The Fear fans wanted to 'crush' the Ants. These guys hated each other.Jon Taffer
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If you can't build a relationship with your customers, you're in big trouble. If you can remember the numbers from the reports and spreadsheets you spent hours poring over in your office, but you can't picture the faces of your customers - you're in big trouble.Jon Taffer
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Failure is an awful thing, and when I look at the common denominator of failure, it seems to always be the same thing: excuses.Jon Taffer
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You give me someone with the right personality, and I'll give you a bar manager in three weeks. You give me someone who has been a lousy bar manager for 30 years, and in three weeks, you'll still have a lousy bar manager.Jon Taffer
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I've made stupid investments. I've made stupid decisions as an employee. I've made foolish decisions as a manager. I've gotten fired. I've lost businesses. I went through all of those things.Jon Taffer
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Pushing for excellence is a fight. You have to fight to hire the right employees, fight to get the supplies you need, to move line items around. Being a great manager means pushing to get those few extra inches every day. It's almost like a football game - the team that wins sometimes wins by just inches.Jon Taffer
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You ever see a bar with 200 beautiful women go broke? But I've seen a lot of bars with great DJs go broke.Jon Taffer
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Sometimes people go into my business because they like to drink, which - that's insane.Jon Taffer
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My company was based in Palm Beach, Florida, but when 'Bar Rescue' took off, I knew I had to move west. It was a choice between L.A. and Vegas. I have a lot of friends in Vegas, and it became my choice. I'm so glad because I love it here. There's a real sense of community. It's a big town that feels like a small town. Everybody knows everybody.Jon Taffer
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In the bar and restaurant industry, you're always one idea away from your next quarter-million.Jon Taffer
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I'm the type of employer who will hire based on personality, based on potential. If you put the resume before the personality, you're going to fail.Jon Taffer
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I've always said that my greatest crises are my greatest opportunities to prove my own character to myself.Jon Taffer
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In the worst of our recession, bars were making money. Every bar can make money. If they're failing, it's not because of the president or Congress or Ukraine. It's because of them. And if you own failure, then you'll own success.Jon Taffer
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Leadership cannot be taught. Either you're a leader by the time you're 12 years old, or you never will be.Jon Taffer
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The Knack were a very, very powerful band, and you got to understand, when they came in, all the punk stuff was still going on. There was an amazing conflict within the scenes.Jon Taffer
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Keeping a bar clean is basic in this business. Having a staff that speaks adequate English is basic.Jon Taffer
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When I meet with people who are ineffective managers with failing businesses, I can't change what they do - I have to change the way they think.Jon Taffer
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I think success is a relative term. If you're a caveman, success is capturing an elephant. Success is achieving better than the norm. Success is being exceptional. It's exceptional reputation, exceptional income, and exceptional respect.Jon Taffer
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I opened my first bar that I owned in 1989. The first one I ever owned was in downtown St. Louis.Jon Taffer
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If you have to signal a bartender to get a drink, then they're not looking at you, which is their problem. They're not doing their job. So don't feel rude when you signal a bartender. They're the ones who caused you to signal them. Go for it.Jon Taffer
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When I went to college, I really became interested in cultural anthropology. Our behavior isn't that different from other primate species'.Jon Taffer
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Don't open a bar if you think all you need to be is social and greet the customers. You have to run a business.Jon Taffer
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Rarely does a congressman stand up and defend a liquor company. Rarely does a congressman stand up and defend a bar.Jon Taffer
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Putting somebody else in crisis mode and causing them to make quicker decisions, urgent decisions, rather than prolonged, more logical decisions can be very advantageous. So, to be successful in business, you have to understand the power of confrontation and how to use it correctly.Jon Taffer
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I could take a cemetery and make all the tombstones beer companies. There's a lot of craft beers that came and went. A lot of them.Jon Taffer
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A plate of food hits the table, lands right in front of you. One of two things happens. Either you sit up and look at it and react to it, or nothing happens. If nothing happens then that restaurant is stuck in mediocrity forever.Jon Taffer
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People see themselves on camera. They're ashamed of the things that they do, so they have a choice: Either they accept responsibility for it, or they blame the show for it. It's a human reaction.Jon Taffer
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