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What a head fk…!
Chalky’s officially made it to its first birthday this week. Woop!
We made it, and what a ride it’s been. I detailed in a previous blog post about the difficulties we had after the honeymoon period ended, but I confess I’ve struggled to find time to write a post about what it’s been like. And our 1st birthday seems like a great time to reflect on the year that was!
Let me wind you back to opening day. After a hectic and very expensive build that resulted in my near divorce and our lead builder abandoning the job 3 weeks before we opened, taking stress leave. We got there.
In hindsight I was living in an alternate reality, one where I could run Bucketty’s, create a huge new concept venue in a near dilapidated building, build it to budget, be a present Dad and husband, and enjoy it.
But we got there.
We now had two complementary venues, the ability to sell twice the amount of beer at juicy retail margins and I was back in the creative startup phase of a business which is my happy place.
I love creating a space for people to come and feel welcome, have a couple of drinks together and share an epic experience. Music, sport, games, stories and a laugh. It’s those moments in between life, where you’re sharing a bit of joy with someone else that make the whole journey feel worth it
The challenge is getting the feel right. Is the lighting right, right music, right volume, seats comfy, spacing between groups just right, drinks banging, food delicious and approachable, team engaged, working hard and enjoying their jobs.
It’s tricky and chaotic, but when we get it right and I look over a bustling venue full of people sharing a moment and making memories it feels great and very much worth the struggle.
But Chalky’s… The struggle vs joy ratio has been very much out of kilter.
In the first three months we crushed it, every seat in the place was full, even midweek!
Revenue was on par with Bucketty’s (which I’ve learned is an anomaly and absolute beast compared to industry benchmarks) and we were doing well. The first few weeks we learned a lot and made heaps of adjustments, a few gave us mixed feedback (code for complaints) but overall the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
I created a more corporate structure to accommodate our burgeoning empire. Cause that’s what you do right?
We hired a new General Manager, created a new Head of Growth and Branding role a new Head of Operations role, and Executive Chef to work across both venue’s . Plus myself, and Lexi.
Combined, I added over $350k to our annual wage bill including super and payroll tax (don’t get me started on the absurdity of payroll tax! A 5% tax on every dollar you pay an employee once you hit $1.2mil in wages, because why???)
Anyway…!
We now had an experienced brainstrust that would help run the machine and relieve daily pressure on me to keep the business humming.
Long story short. After the footy season and our honeymoon ended, revenue fell off a cliff.
Our weekly take dropped by almost 2/3rds.
The low point was in October 2025 when we lost $50k.
Which effectively meant Lexi and I had worked for free, were $1mil in debt and now had to chip in another $50k just to keep the place open.
Luckily Bucketty’s was still chugging along…
Kinda.
See, the thing with venues is they’re like a garden. You can let them grow organically for a while, but leave it too long and weeds creep in, the once beautiful fragrant flowers become overgrown and woody and eventually they’re unrecognisable.
Chalky’s had soaked up most of my attention over the previous 12 months with the build, then the opening, now the rescuing, but Bucketty’s also needed love and attention. Our team there hung on well in difficult circumstances, but I could feel resentment was building.
Then revenue started dropping at Bucketty’s too! Revenue had dropped to 2022 levels, coupled with 2026 costs our margins had become razor thin.
Fuuuck…
I’d wanted to grow the business and create more opportunities for growth, enjoyment and career progression for our team.
Double down on the success of Bucketty’s and prove to myself and the world I could do it again.
I felt like an idiot…
But not for long.
Because I believe almost every problem in a business is solvable. We just needed to get back to our values, understand our numbers and be conservative in our forecasting.
We were also obviously facing pretty significant headwinds with cost of living pressures from our customers, the rising cost of EVERYTHING and the growing competition of other venues offering a fun night out in Brookvale.
Less meetings, more doing.
I needed to get my head out of my arse and back into service. Make some hard decisions and get stuck in.
We made one of our bigger salaries redundant, and fortuitously our new GM went on 6 months maternity leave, giving some financial relief.
Yes - We hired her as our GM even though we knew she was cooking a baby at the time and would soon be off on maternity leave. Do we get a gold star?
I also got pretty good at firing people. In the past year I fired 3 venue managers.
Hi (their name), can we sit down before your shift? I need to warn you that this will be a difficult conversation.
Feel free to use this next time you need to let someone go, works a treat and reduces uncertainty going into the meeting.
I know I sound a little heartless, but when you throw a bad banana into a basket of lovely ripe bananas, what happens? They all turn bad, and all you have yourself is a basket of bad bananas.
I think you know pretty quickly if someone is a bad banana, because the rest of your team starts turning brown. And you can’t unripen a bad banana, you just gotta get rid of it.
Sometimes the bananas would last a few months, one only lasted a day. By the end of that first shift I had 3 staff in tears. Bad banana. Had to go.
And you know what? When you get rid of a bad banana, the team lifts, because they feel validated and safe.
This is a mistake I see so many businesses make. Keeping a bad banana, hoping that they’ll come good. In my experience though, the hard decision is normally the right decision.
So we rethought our strategy for Chalky’s and went for it:
Valentines is now the best private bar for parties - Your own bar, bartenders, music, vibe and if your guests are bored they can head for a sing in the karaoke rooms! This change alone has done enough heavy lifting to get us back in the green.
New smoker friendly outdoor seating area - I copped a heap of flack for this, since the consensus from the community is that smokers should be sent to a special camp for rehabilitation, not rewarded with a chair and coaster.
Open later - We were shutting at around 11pm, but it’s now 1am every Friday and Saturday night. We’ve also started doing free late night karaoke in the main bar, which sounds cringe, and it is. But at that time of the night it actually creates a hell of a singalong vibe. And if the singer is really bad, we just give them an encouraging thumbs up, and turn their mic down.
Launch Kids Karaoke Parties - Initially I wanted to push away from kids in the venue and focus on making Chalky’s an adult centric playground. But in hindsight that was a mistake, during the day families are looking for stuff to do, and nobody over the age of 12 wants to sing karaoke at 11am on a Sunday.
We’ve managed to build real momentum with parties, and the best thing about these parties is the parents treat themselves to a lunch and margarita while they wait.
We launched a members club. I'm proud to say that right now we've got 291 Chalky's members, many of them Silver members at $250 a pop. In return they're treated like royalty. Like one of those pricks in business class who gets better everything.
They're the ones sipping champagne, oblivious to your envious stare as you struggle past. And these silver kings and queens reward us in return, coming back again and again, treating it like their local.
Rebuild the website and booking system from scratch. This is something I’m particularly proud of. With the help of AI and vibe coding, I was able to build a new website, booking system and online membership program from scratch.
A project which would have taken 12 months and $100,000+ in development costs a couple of years ago, I now did myself without any outside assistance.
I built the entire thing. And it has the ability to manage pool table, restaurant tables and karaoke rooms, take online payments, send SMS’s & emails and run business analytics. It’s even managing our stock, placing orders and logging stock variance for us.
It’s so good that I’ve had a number of people tell me I should package it up and sell it to other venue’s.
Feedback I quite enjoy hearing, and plan to do nothing about.
Then, over the space of the following months things started to gradually turn around. We still had depressing moments where we’d have a dozen people in the venue across the entire day and wouldn’t even cover wages.
But it’d be buffered by a massive Monday lunchtime where we’d be booked out for the Super Bowl, or a packed Tuesday night with 15 trivia teams registered.
And I love it when it rains.
Because people like playing pool inside when it’s cold and raining. Which is why Winter is now my favourite season!
We’re also getting a strong following for Manly games, both at home and away. I hoped that we’d become the best place to watch a big match on the beaches, and reckon we’re well on our way. Heaps of people rebook to watch each week with plenty repping their jerseys.
The next experiment is the FIFA World Cup.
The building is blessed with a license that allows us to open at 5am, which we’ll be doing for the duration of the tournament. I’m gonna buy a coffee machine, bacon and egg rolls from Chef Marti and maybe a few croissants. Plus, if your team wins or you’re just in the mood, we’ll have the bar ready to roll!
Will people come out at 5am to watch a football match in Brookvale?
I have no idea.
But we’re gonna try anyway. And that, really, is the spirit of the whole year.
And Bucketty’s?
We’ve gotten back into the garden.
And it’s looking and feeling better than ever.
There’s heaps more comfortable seating at the back of the venue, and we’re mixing up the entertainment lineup with a bigger variety of bands. We’ll also be leaning into more random events to keep everyone interested.
We’ve promoted Chris as our new Head Brewer, and the kitchen crew are always striving to make the best food in town.
Also recently we applied for a road closure and grant from the government. Our proposal is to hold a street festival out the front of our place on Orchard Road.
We received heaps of support from the council and community, but no grant money…. However we might do it anyway! Stay tuned.
And what does next year look like?
Money is thinner than it was, but the amazing thing about the right idea is that they often don’t cost much to execute. Dachshund racing has put Bucketty’s on national TV three times, and is our biggest day of the year, yet it costs almost nothing to run or promote.
So we’ll be looking for more random, more fun, more yum and maintain the laughter.
Goldfish racing maybe?
I used to do it at parties my 20’s and it’s great craic. I actually own the domain fishrace.com just in case I ever decide to take it mainstream.
Yeow!
Thanks for reading and following along.
🙏
Cheers
Nick
