Update #6 From Vision to Reality

I'm pretty sure that anyone who ever started any project will tell you that they had an idea of what they wanted to do but making the idea become a reality was a very rocky road indeed. Well for me ..... actually it wasn't that bad. Was it a tedious, lengthy, frustrating process .... absolutely but we just kept plugging away at it and hey presto .... a gin bar was born.

I had a lot of support and assistance from my wife Karen who is actually a really cool idea's person, Gabriel and Sophia who have been very involved and have an enormous amount of experience, Steve Dodson who I enjoyed working with and again, very experienced and let's not forget Aurelie (for the English it's pronounced "awe - ray - lee") who contributed in many ways. So a huge thank you to you all for your support.

I'd also like to say a quick thanks to my son Steve (he has been in F&B most of his working life) who has been calling in on a regular basis with tips and support. I did laugh when he commented that he thought that it was cute that I wanted to be like him when I grew up. No plans to grow up yet though.

Anyway, we finally opened on the 1st December 2023 and the vision, depicted in the 3D model, was to create a boutique gin bar that caters to the local residents of Kouklia, Aphrodite Hills, Secret Valley (Venus Rock), Mandria, Timi and Anarita.

A lot of people, and conventional wisdom, said that we were opening at the wrong time of the year because the tourist season was over but in my thought process, which is a bit contrarian, it's the perfect time. Here are a couple of reasons why:

One: As I mentioned above, my primary demographic is the people in the local area. To provide them with the a warm, cosy, friendly bar environment that isn't a traditional taverna, it's something different.

Two: I'm an IT guy. I needed time to learn how to operate a bar, build my supply lines and shake the odd cocktail. Doing that in the summer would have been a disaster. Trust me, I have already validated that over the past couple of weeks.

Three: I needed to learn to work with Aurelie in a structured manner. What is our opening process. What are our operating processes. What is our closing process. What are her strengths and how do they dovetail into my weaknesses and visa versa. We have been doing this over the past 14 days and the teamwork is starting to become natural.

The building of the bar was certainly harder than I expected but we got there on time. I took a few pictures while the transformation was in progress, so to cut a long story short, below are a few beginning-to-end pics.

As I mentioned before, on 1st December we opened and we have had some very nice comments from everyone. Many thanks.

The upstairs room is still under construction. Essentially we needed to put a new floating floor in place to reduce noise and cover up AC plumbing. That is well under way and we are planning to open that for use in January.

Still plenty of work to do but that's it for now. We are open!!!

Many thanks for reading.

Cheers Mal