The biggest thing I would want is a good beer selection, especially one with Newcastle, Guiness, and others on tap. I’m not sure if that is good business practice — Americans, particularly in the South, do love to guzzle their overpriced piss water beer — but that would be my personal suggestion. Just being brutally honest, if your bar has nothing but the typical Bud / Miller / Coors / Michelob / Corona selection, I’m not going there. Period. I might be in the minority, but again that’s my take.

Getting a lot of really good TV’s is obviously a must, but I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock into that, so to speak. You’re not going to differentiate yourself from your competition in that regard — everyone else will have it too — and honestly the same thing goes for the girls and the bar food, too.

My advice on the bar food would be to go off the beaten path just a tad. Go with some of the normal stuff (wings, etc), but I would work hard to come up with a couple of unique things that you really cannot find anywhere else. Again, if you’re just basically going to do the same thing that everyone else does, you then will basically be competing based on location and price, and that’s going to be a tough battle for you to win.

As for gamedays, I say you try to get in touch with your local chapter of the Alabama Alumni Association, and see if you can host their parties there. Likewise goes for some other major sports teams that you think could bring in a crowd.

Also, you should probably focus on non-gamedays. Truth be told, you’re probably going to get a pretty dang good bit of business on gameday regardless of what you do, but ultimately whether or not your business thrives or drowns in a sea of red ink will probably come down to what you do Sunday through Thursday more so than anything else. Try to come up with some unique ways to get people into your place during non-peak hours.

Beer selection and price range. It’s great to have some nice craft beers. It also doesn’t hurt to have some of the old standbys for cheap (for those of us who aren’t that picky).

Good food. I would much rather a place have a menu half the size and do everything the serve well than have a giant menu with lots of mediocre stuff. If you’ve got some interesting menu items, all the better.

wrt servers: if my options for the person to come to my table when I’m trying to watch the game are some guy that knows the menu (food and drink), is friendly, and keeps things moving or some hot college girl who flirts with me, but knows f*ckall about customer service . . . give me the dude. Obviously if I can get the hot college girl that is also a great server, that’s better… but don’t sacrifice good service just to put some boobs in the restaurant.

I’m still looking for a good bar in Atlanta that has shuffleboard and/or Sink the Biz . . . maybe you could be that bar?

All of these are good suggestions, but one addition to the beer selection suggestion. if you’re going to make the commitment to carry craft beers, Newcastle, Guinness, etc, it would be a good idea to also show Premiere League soccer matches and advertise that fact as their is a significant cross-section of PLS fans and beer snobs in the greater Atlanta area. As I’m not a real fan, I don’t know what time most PLS matches are televised in the states, but I do remember when I was bartending that the guys who were ordering Guinness Draught, Hatuey, and Anchor Steam were also the ones complaining that we didn’t have “real” football on the TV.

I spend a good part of nearly every Saturday in a sports bar, and here is what i look for in a good one:

- Absolutely no official fan clubs. The bar I like the most has this seriously annoying trait – it happens to be the local tennessee AND auburn bar. They rope off about half the available sitting area specifically. I don’t go there, obviously, if Alabama happens to be playing at the same time as those schools. I’m sure the bar gets a lot of love form those fanbases, but they do it at the expense of others

- Lots of large tv’s you can see from wide angles. I go for the Alabama games, but I stay for other games of interest as well. It’s great to sit in a central spot and be able to view multiple games.

- great service of course

- Beer selection. I know it’s been said up thread but want to +1 on that. By great beer selection, i mean specifically craft brews not on draft. I love a great Prima Pils on draft, but unfortunately not many people order that and the beer gets stale in the keg. So, have kegs for the most popular beers whatever they are, but also offer bottles of as many good craft beers for those with more broad tastes

- speaking of, there are a number of great local breweries i know of in georgia and you could showcase them as well. I support local brews when given the opportunity

- moveable tables, so you can accommodate large parties who want to sit together

- friendly staff obviously. A trip to the bar is so much more pleasurable with a friendly wait staff

- have a unique dish. One bar i like to go to has pickle chips which are just amazing. not only are they great, but i don’t know if you can get them anywhere else in town. You should definitely add this to your menu

- recognize those folks who come to your place often and reward them with a free drink every once in awhile, or with preference when they ask for a particular game on a particular tv

apparently i’ve had way too much coffee this morning

Good luck man

….http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/The-Shutdown-Five-Things-a-Sports-Bar-needs-for?urn=nfl,185551

a somewhat dowdy bar that caters to a brutally loyal clientel who are almost entirely guys between the ages of 28 and 50 who aren’t too rowdy, want to watch the games in peace with good beer. you won’t get rich but you will stay in business forever.

or you skew for kids in their 20s who want good looking waitresses, lotsa noise and at least the impression of non-stop excitement. if you pull it off you do great for awhile, until the next cool place opens up and you are left holding the bag.

in the end, though. you are never going to be any better than the folks working for you. be selective, hire intelligent and motivated staff and encourage them to do their best. if you pull this off, the rest is a cakewalk.

Go to Barnacles (off of Peachtree Industrial, if they are still there — it’s been a while since I moved away from the ATL) and see what they are doing. In my mind that place was the gold standard for how a sportsbar should be run. They had good food (and not just wings), great drink specials and you could see YOUR game from pretty much any seat in the house.

You also need good people to test your awesome dishes.

I don’t usually give away my food-eating experience for nothing, but for a fellow ’Bama fan, I could make an exception.

or your always second best. period.

Drizzle cheese dip and sweet bbq sauce on top of corn tortilla chips. top with pulled bbq pork or chicken and jalapenos. It’s amazing.

Also one of the main things I look for in a bar is comfortable seating. I can’t stand it when the bar or any tables with bar stools don’t have a foot rest. And make sure any booth seating areas have plenty room for the big fellas.

1. Chicken Nachos; more than one flavor of wings; reubens
2. GOOD selection of beer, dammit Rome wasn’t built in a day and Boulevard doesn’t count as an exotic beer (ditto Heineken, any Mexican crap or anything with Clamato in the name).
3. Competent, prompt service that won’t leave you dying of thirst
4. Hot hostesses and/or bartender
5. An honest pour without burning the drinks
6. Hightops that won’t break your neck
7. Pitchers
8. Smaller televisions for the niche events (c’mon let hockey have a place)
9. Hardwood floors
10. Vid Triv, to establish some initial “regulars”