The Business of Beer and Board Games - House Rules Board Game Lounge

Ever dreamt of pairing a strategic board game with a cold pint? Nathan Murray, one of the two brains behind House Rules Board Game Lounge, shares his entrepreneurial journey from the humdrum of small-town existence to the bustling energy of Grand Rapids' nightlife. His tale is one of resilience, confronting early financial hurdles, and steering a unique business concept through the choppy waters of an industry that was blindsided by a global pandemic.

Nate doesn't stop at recounting the trials; he dives into the art of successful partnerships and how they've become the cornerstone of not just surviving, but thriving in a competitive market. From grappling with red tape to finessing the perfect balance between work and play, his experiences shed light on the critical decisions that have shaped customer relationships and paved the way for expansion, including the introduction of a kitchen to their board game haven.

We wrap up with Nate's seasoned advice for those itching to take the entrepreneurial plunge. He offers a measured approach, stressing financial savvy over simple passion. It's an invaluable reality check for those lured by the romance of self-employment, complemented by an open invitation to visit House Rules Lounge – a place where the allure of board games meets the comfort of beer, promising the added delight of burgers and fries soon. Join us for a story that's as much about the intricacies of business as it is about the joy found in the little squares and pieces of a board game.

Learn more about House Rules Board Game Lounge here: https://houseruleslounge.com/

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: THE PALMER GROUP real estate team.  The Palmer Group is an energetic team within 616 REALTY led by Eldon Palmer with over 20 years of experience helping people navigate the home buying and selling process in West Michigan. To support the channel, contact Eldon@ThePalmer.Group, drop a comment, and LIKE or SUBSCRIBE to this podcast. You can also learn more at https://thepalmer.group/

HAVE A SUGGESTION?  WANT TO BE A GUEST ON THE PODCAST?  Reach out to Eldon@ThePalmer.Group or send us a DM.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Today we have Nate Nathan Murray with House Rules Board Game Lounge here in Grand Rapids, one of the fastest growing bars or lounges or entertainment spaces in town. They consistently have to turn people away they're so popular. So, anyway, today Nate talks about the challenges he had starting the businesses, the bumps and bruises, the times that they had to kind of get through in order to get things even rolling, success of his partnership, some of the things that they've done to be successful and some of the exciting things they have planned in the coming months and in the years ahead. So, anyway, this is an excellent podcast. Nate has great energy and I hope you get as much out of this as I did. Enjoy. All right, welcome back. Today we have Nate with House Rules Board Game Lounge. We're going to talk a little bit about you know how we got started, a little bit of the background of the bar lounge, et cetera, and a little bit of a story. Sounds great. Start with you know where you grew up.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Yeah, so I grew up in Northern Michigan in a little town called Central Lake. I graduated with 40 people, so it was very small. The people I went to kindergarten with were the same people I graduated high school with, so it was a very unique situation. That's where I grew up there. I have two sisters and one brother I lived with and two other couple other sisters and then I went to the school at Grand Valley and from there I kind of traveled around the country. But, yeah, grew up in Northern Michigan.

Speaker 1: 1:27

So did you start off as a bar owner, like you always been in the bar business, or?

Speaker 2: 1:31

Nope, I never in college. I never did it at all. It wasn't. I wasn't as interested in the bar portion of what we did. I was more interested in the gaming portion of what we did. So we're a board game bar. I was much more interested in the board game portion of it and that's kind of it. I knew about drinks, I knew how to make a drink, I enjoy drinking, but I'd never done it, I'd never worked at all. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:51

So how'd you come to get into the business?

Speaker 2: 1:54

Yeah, so I a few years ago I've signed up. Probably now, seven or eight years ago, I got this idea. I wanted to start my own business and I tried to think of what the best business in the world to be would be, and I thought the best business is a business you don't have to convince people they need. And I thought that was an oil change. Everyone needs an oil change. I don't need to convince anyone they need it. You just got to put it in the right spot and I thought that what had must have changed with the oil change industry is that they weren't geared toward women, and I thought an oil change industry geared toward women would be a great business. So that was my idea.

Speaker 2: 2:23

I found a franchise in Colorado Denver, colorado and my wife and I flew out there and we went and sat in the seminar and while we were there, we were looking for something fun to do. We've been big board game players for years and we found something called a board game bar. It was called a board game Republic. I didn't even know what those words meant. A board game bar what is that? I don't know what that even is, and we went and checked it out. It was in like a kind of a back of a factory area and we walked in and it was, you know, 500 games on the wall. I think they had like canned PBR and Miller Lite and boxes of wine. I think they had like Totino's pizza rolls. They were serving out of a microwave. So the place was real different, but I was blown away. I'd never seen anything like this. I loved games, I loved the experience and I thought it looked a lot like Grand Rapids. Honestly, it kind of looked to me like a brewery, kind of a brewery vibe, but with all these games.

Speaker 2: 3:11

And from there I kind of got this idea that maybe I don't want to be an oil change operator, I want to be a board game bar owner. And that started a process that started about the last about five years of trying to buy a board game bar owner. And that's how it started. And anyone I talked to in these years coming up, I told them about my board game bar idea. They said the same thing. I don't know. What do you? What does that even mean? What? How do you? What do you mean? Play board games and people don't get it and people still don't get it to this day and uh yeah. So I I told everyone I could about it. I tried to get a loan. I went to the SBA, put together a business plan. I made plans to quit my job and I could not get an SBA loan. I could not secure the funding.

Speaker 2: 3:48

They had really good reasons why they said first, I had no experience owning a bar A hundred percent correct, never worked in one of my life. Um, they uh, the the business was, um, they thought, was an unproven concept. I thought it was kind of a kind of a baloney excuse like unproven. Okay, call it a sports bar, what's the matter with it? It's a bar, it's games. And they said no. And then the other reason they had was that I was too leveraged. I had to leverage every asset I ever had to get in this business. I was 100% in and the SBA doesn't like you to be that. They don't want you to be all in because it's a risky 2018, 2019.

Speaker 2: 4:21

So, right before covid, yeah, and I was really mad about it and I was uh, I was upset. I thought it was kind of ridiculous. I was mad at the bank, but in hindsight can you imagine taking out a half a million dollar loan, being 110 percent leveraged, and then covid hit, yeah, shut you down it? I mean in hindsight, like what a blessing, right, like I'm glad that that lady said the things, things that she said to me. And the sba lady was really, really cool. She actually said don't be confused about this. If you've defaulted on this loan, the SBA will take everything you own. You will lose your house, you will lose your car, your kids will lose everything. They will take it all. It's not a joke, it's not for fun, and so I appreciate her saying that because she was 100% accurate.

Speaker 2: 4:59

So I let that dream go. I just figured I'll just work till I retire and die and hate every minute of it and that would be the end of it. Well, in the meantime I got a call from a friend in Northern Michigan and Central Lake still there, king Orchards, my friend Courtney. She said somebody's opened up a board game bar in Grand Rapids. And I said what? I was immediately mad. I was so mad about this. He took my idea and he said well, I said you're a cool guy. I said yeah, super cool. I said should I give him a call? She goes you should give him a call. So I got his number, I called him up, said hey, you don't know me. My name's Nathan. I had this board game bar concept. I'd love to talk with you. He said come on in Came in that afternoon and we 2021, and the rest is history. And now we're going four years strong at house rules lounge and we're expanding and things are moving great.

Speaker 1: 5:49

So that's amazing. But you, you, probably, if you wouldn't have done all that leg work ahead of time and you wouldn't have been ready when somebody mentioned that hey, somebody else's, and you wouldn't have had the funding, your partner, no. So what's? Is that a, you know, 50, 50 work or is it 50, 50 financial?

Speaker 2: 6:09

You don't have to get into the details but so my partner, I, are 50, 50 partners. Um, he, uh, when I rolled into this bar and said we should be partners, he told me the same thing. The bank said you've never worked a bar in your life. I don't want to. I don't know, I want to be your partner. You've never done this. And he was a hundred percent right. So I just said let me work for free. He was just the one guy I said I'll show up and work for you. You don't have to pay me, I just want to learn about how this bar works. And he said, okay. So I showed up and I poured beers and swept the floor. Anything that I could do, I would do it.

Speaker 2: 6:36

And then we just sort of talked I, if you're going to have a business partner, you got to get along with them. It's a marriage of sorts. And uh, and we talked about that but yeah, we're 50, 50 partners. Um, we're invested equally. We wanted to operate it as an equal. Um, my partner, Brian, was great, we get along, we. We split every decision. We've never had an argument. We get along great. So it's been really fortunate.

Speaker 1: 7:09

That showed up and then yeah, but we, we work great together. It's been a good, good, good process, good teamwork, awesome. Now I've heard partnerships. You know the the best thing or the worst thing, but one common thing I've heard over and over, especially recently, is that you cannot like most people cannot do it all on their own, whether it's finances or running it. It's, and I find that in myself, I'm so much better off partnering in some fashion with somebody else. Now, when you're tying your finances and your livelihood and caring for your kids together, it's a little bigger stakes, and so it's. That sounds like it's a great setup.

Speaker 2: 7:34

Yeah, it's worked out well, Brian. I think he he owned the business before and he rebranded it as House Rules and I think he maybe thought he didn't want to partner. But after we got we connected I think he realized he really he did want to partner. He had been doing it for five years solo and that's a tough business. That's every hour, every day, you're at the bar, you know, at the business you're. It's an 80 hour a week job and I think that really takes a toll on a person and once we were partners, we both. He got a lot of much needed to work-life balance and I got to, you know, do something I've been dreaming about for years. So, yeah, it worked out well.

Speaker 1: 8:05

Awesome. So what are anything crazy that you've had to work through outside of the COVID startup, I suppose?

Speaker 2: 8:13

Nothing super crazy, I would say Like working. Anytime you get involved with the liquor license, particularly in Michigan, you're going to be working with the MLCC. They have a million and a half rules. You're definitely going to need a couple of lawyers involved. It's a lot of stuff. So we had to jump through a lot of hoops with the MLCC Not impossible, just it's tedious and it can be quite expensive. If you've ever looked into a liquor license, it could be quite costly. I'm sure in Miami they're probably $10 million for a liquor license. It depends where you are geographically. So there's a lot of hurdles to go through that. But it was just a lot of trial and error really, brian, and I's favorite saying is that's you know, we're always willing to give something a shot, so let's try it out and see what works. And we did a lot of that.

Speaker 1: 8:51

Nice, a lot of trial and error what's probably been the biggest success of those trials, or maybe one or two of those.

Speaker 2: 8:59

I think the biggest thing that we sort of the big, biggest hurdles we got over and we we sort of managed was we had to really embrace this turntable mindset. If you're going to own a restaurant you probably heard the phrase you got to turn tables. Restaurants work, become profitable by turning lots of tables over quickly and getting more people in. And I propose and it was in our business plan that we actually don't have to turn tables. We want people to stay there for hours. If they want to come in and stay eight hours and play games, that's a great idea. They'll spend more, they'll drink more. They'll drink more. They'll make a lot of money.

Speaker 2: 9:35

And we got about six months into it and we realized that simply wasn't the case. There's a spending curve that everyone has, where it starts off real high and then it dies right down, and so people who were there for literally five, six and seven hours in our place were that last two hours they just weren't spending anything. You can only drink so much, you can only eat so much, sure, and so we really had to embrace this idea that, like, we're not technically turning tables, but we need to be aware of how long people are and kick them out. So we have a three hour maximum reservation window. Most people book two, two to three hours and then we get them out and get the next people in.

Speaker 2: 9:59

That was one hurdle we had to jump through real quick Interesting. That helped yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:03

Yeah, very cool. It's just amazing. I've been there and it's a cool setup. You have games all around, so you have games so part of your business model. What do you sell?

Speaker 2: 10:13

Yeah, so we are, but we're a board game bar lounge, so we have 650 games on the wall. You can come in and play them, all ages friendly, all the time. It's $5 a person to play games up to three hours Once you're there. We have a full bar beer, wine and cocktails. We have lots of non-alcoholic options. We have more non-alcoholic options than any bar in Grand Rapids All ages friendly, kid friendly. In addition, we have a small retail section and we have a small snack section, and that's what we have right now. We are currently in the process of expanding, though we're adding 50 more seats and we're building the kitchen, which is a big deal, and so I'm very excited for that. That's the next big hurdle. But, right, excited for that, that's the next big hurdle. Um, but right now, that's that's what we're doing.

Speaker 1: 10:48

Yeah, that'll be an interesting mountain to climb, you know, adding food and a kitchen and the staff for the kitchen and keeping people happy and choosing the menu, like I've heard. Um, you know, it'll be interesting to follow that, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:01

Yeah, I've heard horror stories and anyone who's owned a restaurant will probably tell you horror stories, and they're not wrong. Um, I think what we have going for us it's a little bit different is, um, I, we, we have people showing up, we're, we're busy all the time. We kick probably, we turn away probably 50 to a hundred people on Saturday and probably 25 people every single day. We're turning people away, um, and so what that tells me is that if we bring in food, that's going to be an additional revenue, additional revenue stream, but also the food just has to not be terrible. I told this.

Speaker 2: 11:28

What I told Brian too, is our food just has to not be terrible. It's not going to, not, it's going to be great, but it just only has to not be terrible. They're already there. I don't have to bring people in with my food. Like, we're a restaurant. If you were to start one up, you got to convince people to come in and that sounds like a huge deal. I don, and he's going to be running it. My dad told me a long time ago if you're, hire people who are smarter than you and I think this is a good example of that I'm not going to try to run this kitchen. I don't know how to run a kitchen. I'm going to hire someone to do it and I think that'll help us out a lot.

Speaker 1: 11:57

So no microwave. Totino's pizza rolls.

Speaker 2: 12:10

No offense to Totino's, I love Totino's to be sliders and a build your own uh, fry bar called bry's fries. This is brian's dream. Okay, so if you want to pick your type of fry you want waffle fries, sweet potato fries, shoestring fries, whatever put your toppings on it, cheese and meat, kind of like a loaded nacho, but fry concept that's bry's fries. So that's going to be the idea we're going to run with that sweet.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Yeah, I have to come in and check those out for sure. Yeah, so is there particular area, like if you were to start over somewhere else? Is there any thought about that? First of all, expanding yeah Well, expanding to a different location eventually.

Speaker 2: 12:36

Yeah, absolutely. I think a house rules is really has a special formula that I think that could be duplicated. Um, and I would like to expand it. Um, my partner, brian, was a little more reluctant than I was. He's coming around, I think what it is is. He's just knows the amount of work that was required to build a business and he's hesitant to do it again, and I don't blame him. It is a lot of work, but I feel like we got the special sauce that I think we could duplicate even better the second time around. So I'm certainly would like to see us expand.

Speaker 2: 13:00

I'd like to go into Kalamazoo and build a place there and then either to Lansing or maybe the Lake shore to build a third location. Sure, my idea is that you can only have anybody. Anybody can do things once. You do it one time and maybe it's successful. You might've got lucky. You do it twice, okay, but you do it three times when now you know what you're doing. So you, if you got three times, then you could be bought out by a big company or start franchising or something. So my goal is to see three house rules locations and I hope we can do it.

Speaker 1: 13:24

Nice, yeah Well, I love the energy. So I think, if the energy is any indication that you'll do it and I've known you for a little while and you've worked pretty darn hard at it so, plus, you've built what seems like a good network. I see some of the social media stuff and I don't even know that it's intentional or not, but it seems like it's just got a great vibe. You've continually seemed to grow, at least from my perspective on the outside, got a great vibe.

Speaker 2: 13:49

You've continually seemed to grow, at least from my perspective on the outside. Yeah, yeah, you're a hundred percent right. We've had a great uh kind of call it like a grassroots energy. We have like people are just really big fans of house rules, Like our customers are, and they love what we're doing and we're just going to keep delivering it more and more. We've uh, you know, we hire great people, we have great customers, we treat our employees fairly and I think those are all things that add up to be a popular and successful business.

Speaker 1: 14:10

Right. So if somebody else were maybe starting something like this in another state not the markets that you were looking to chase after, what would be some of the initial advice on a similar type of business at least?

Speaker 2: 14:23

Yeah, I mean, I always ask people when they. Some people say they want to work for themselves or owning a business. They see all the I think they. Some people think they want to be rich and like that's a good way to do it, and I I often tell people, you, you don't want to do this, you want to be make more money, go do. You can go make more money working in an office or with less work, go do that. So sometimes I tell people, don't're you're saying you want to do Um?

Speaker 2: 14:47

But I think, like, uh, having things, I think the advice that I really had for anyone is like to not to be scared of it. Like you know, it's going to be a risk, this is a risk, and then you've got to be open to that risk and then think it through um very thoroughly with your partner or family or whoever, because it is uh, I had to work two jobs for almost a year and that was a stressful situation and I don't know that everyone really wants to put the effort in, you know, to start that business. But I think it was certainly worth it, but it was risky. I don't know that I would do it exactly that same way again, but yeah, it'd be risky.

Speaker 1: 15:18

So two jobs to help fund the business startup.

Speaker 2: 15:21

Yeah Well, even more than the business startup, I had a little bit of capital on hand. I think when I tell people they need to start, you got to have assets available. If you're going to build a business, I don't care what it is, you got to have money, you have to have capital. If you own nothing, then you're not. You're going to have a hard time starting a business. So I had a little bit of a money set aside in a 401k. I moved it over to an IRA on the advice of a financial advisor that I had. I always recommend get for that.

Speaker 2: 15:50

But I had my obligations at home to pay my mortgage and my bills. And when I talked to my wife and I told her, hey, I want to quit my very cushy office job to go do something that might fail and I thought she was going to I thought she'd hate me for it. I really did. I thought she was going to not want it, but she was very supportive. She said, hey, you have to just be able to make the mortgage payment. So if you going to quit this job, that's fine, but if you have to go do shipped groceries or sell on Craigslist, you got to make that mortgage payment. So if you're willing to do all that work, I'm in. So I said okay.

Speaker 1: 16:19

So I worked my other job and this job and my one the job I liked paid nothing, and the job I didn't like paid all my bills. So I did both. I kind of just transitioned from one to the other slowly until it was successful. I think most entrepreneurs I've talked to have a similar story Like you got to fund that startup and you got to be willing to work 80 hours, whether it's 420 hours, whatever it takes, whatever it takes between multiple jobs or at the same same job, you just gotta gotta have that cashflow rolling early.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Yep, yep for sure, and I know I worked for six months without a paid check at all from the bar. Um, so I did what I did do my. My partner, brian, and I have a couple of different duties in the bar, and one of the things I took over that he didn't really want to do was the financial portion of our business. And when I first joined and I said what is our breakeven point? And he didn't did a break even analysis and I did two of them. One of them was if we paid everyone but ourselves, because that's what we had to do. And then I did one where we get to pay ourselves.

Speaker 2: 17:16

That one was higher, obviously, and uh, that we shot for the lower one. First I had to make sure I could pay my rent, pay my bills, pay my employees when I got them. That was the most important. I don't pay myself and I did skip out. I did not get paid a couple of times once we started, but it has been very rare. And then the second break even was if we paid ourselves, which is where we are now. It was nice.

Speaker 1: 17:34

Yeah, I mean, that didn't happen overnight.

Speaker 2: 17:36

It did not happen overnight. Yeah, it took probably a good year before we started making anything that resembled a decent paycheck.

Speaker 1: 17:43

Yeah, a few different successful business owners over the years and one of them, that's one of the first. You know we drive. I remember going on a ride one time and we're driving past this little ice cream shop and some of these other businesses had cycled through and the guy that I was with he's like so many people start these little businesses and they don't do that. How many ice cream cones do I have to sell the one, pay the rent, two, the utilities and then pay the staff and then have some profit. Everybody's in love with the idea. They go, get the t-shirts, the business card, put the sign up on the door, but actually understanding how much you have to actually make, which seems like it should be super simple and base level, but a lot of people just ignore that.

Speaker 2: 18:27

Yeah, I think some people go into a business with a passion project idea. I see this a lot. When people want to start a business, they always think of a passion project, something you really like, whatever it is you like. You know, I like making comic books, I'm going to go in a comic book business, and the thing I like to say and it's cliche and you might have heard it before but like a good baker doesn't run a good bakery, because those are two different skills. Baking and running a bakery are two different skills, and sometimes you go into things that we just are really interested in. I really like I'm passionate about this and so I want to do that, but that doesn.

Speaker 2: 19:01

Board games I'm going to start a board game bar. I'm saying, okay, well, we have the game portion, that's part of it. We have the business portion and this is arguably the more important of the two. You have to understand the business side of what you do, and so people working in and on the business are two different skills that not everyone is quite prepared to deal with. So I caution people with passion projects a little bit. If you got a million dollars and you want to start whatever business you want, well, go for it. It doesn't matter for you. But if you don't have a million dollars most of us don't you want to maybe just be a sensitive. You're starting something fun, but it has to pay the bills. There's a financial backing of this. You need to understand. You need to understand the economy of your business.

Speaker 1: 19:36

So Thoughts on your kids or maybe somebody coming out of school, what they might like. You've done a pretty good job with this so far, four years in looking to expand After again you had a. You know you went to college for something completely different. You worked in a whole different field. Pretty much beyond that, I mean it's some related. Yeah, like, what kind of advice would you give some, for instance, your kids or anybody coming out of college right now, or or high school even?

Speaker 2: 20:08

Yeah, I don't. As far as advice, I'm just I'm not sure. I would caution people that college maybe isn't always the answer. I don't always think that everyone needs to go to school. I think that staring down, you know 30, 40, I don't even know what college costs now. 50, $60,000 in debt to go make $25,000 a year is probably not a good idea. So people really need to consider what they want to get out of college. I think there are lots of options that are not college related. I think just getting some job experience doing anything is probably as valuable as anything you're going to do in college. Go, if you're interested in running a comic book store, go work at a comic book store. Go talk to a comic book store guy, see what they got to say. I think getting to know some people who do the work you're interested in probably would go as far as a college degree and cost you a whole lot less.

Speaker 1: 20:52

Yeah, I asked that because we were talking beforehand and both of us have similar thoughts on the college experience and you know the value it brings. Of course, you know if you're going to be an engineer or a doctor you have to have to go that route. But you want to be an entrepreneur, own a business, work for yourself, you know, might as well go work for somebody else kind of learn the ropes.

Speaker 2: 21:15

Yeah for sure. Yeah, I kind of think what, when I look back on the things I did really well, I think one of the things I did was I was able to recognize an opportunity, and I think that's some things that people don't always appreciate. I had a vision, I saw an opportunity. I could paint the picture of what I wanted it to be. So when I saw, when I first came in and met with Brian and saw his place, I instantly saw the potential and I saw the opportunity and that kind of drove, what I was gonna do after that. I could see where it could go. It wasn't there, it started off much less, but we I thought we could get it there. I don't think people always had that vision to see what something could be. You know, looking at a business that's closed or a place and like what could this business be? Thinking about it in those terms, I think is something I did well and was able to capitalize on where do you think you learned that or developed?

Speaker 2: 21:55

it? I don't really know. I think I've always had some kind of an entrepreneurial spirit. I was always scared of doing my own thing. I I had. But I my friend Dan called this the brass handcuffs. They're not gold. You've heard of gold handcuffs. You make $500,000. You can't walk away. Well, I had brass handcuffs. I made not that I made less than that, but it was. I was scared to walk away from that standard income. You know, if I made a hundred grand a year, that's pretty good money. I'm at benefits and vacation vacation, that sounds good. Why would you walk away from that? And I was scared to go out on my own and do something different. I had kids, like a lot of people do, and a mortgage and bills and it was intimidating going on my own. But I think I always had that kind of drive, that curiosity to be my own boss and work my own schedule and kind of drive my own life for once, and it always appealed to me.

Speaker 1: 22:40

Yeah, my own life for once, and it always appealed to me. Yeah, well, you mentioned you put in you know, five years worth or some fashion of their, of uh, research into it, so that probably had something to do with being able to see the right opportunity when it did come along. Um, so, yeah, good stuff. Well, I appreciate you having here anything, uh, you'd like to share before we head out? How can people find you?

Speaker 2: 23:04

Yeah, so I mean House Rules Lounge is down in 404 Ionia Avenue in Grand Rapids or right across from the downtown market, and if you like board games and beer, that's what we do the best of Show up. Soon we're going to have burgers and fries. Those will be great too. So, yeah, come check it out. Awesome Thanks.