ampersand wrote:
Rhino wrote:
If it really was 1800/mo, even CA dollars, the first thing they needed to do, about ten years ago, was renegotiate.
I really should re-emphasize, that was just the rumour we heard last week. It did sound a little high to me, but even at half that price, I can't see it being much of a moneymaker for a place like Rembrandt's.
&
Possibly $800 was the actual figure...that's at least in the relevant range. The idea that it was a quarterly invoice for three months at $600 each also makes sense.
ampersand wrote:
WB TANAKA wrote:
No.
With all due respect, WB, and as a long-time regular member of that large, excellent team you mentioned, I have to No your "No."
Yes, the other members of my team are excellent players. (Kinda scary excellent, actually.) And it's a reasonably large group, I guess (I lost count at around 15 or 16). But we only really came out in force on Wednesdays, and to a lesser extent on Fridays. Even then, we'd usually get only about 8-10 players at a time (maybe 4-6 on Fridays). There were often a number of other bar regulars who would sign in, but they would have been there anyway, trivia or no.
That's not a hell of a lot of net new customers. And not all of us were particularly big drinkers (though I did my best to compensate for that, I'm only one man!), nor did we always order a whole lot of food. I would guess that on a monthly basis our table didn't usually account for much more than $2000 gross sales, pre-tax, pre-tip. I know food/beverage markups are huge, but I don't see how that justifies $1800/mo. expenses, even if you include the occasional curious traveler who wants to check out the little bar with the big scores.
If you as a group provided $2,000 in monthly gross revenue strictly for Premium Games, that's a contribution to profit of about $1,300 a month strictly from those three big nights you tended to play together. There were many other games played at Rembrandt's outside those three nights. I understand your hesitance to assume a profit, but I really think that it's not even close. If I had the full stats I'd dig further into off-hour volume, but the $2,000 you suggest covers any reasonable cost of system by itself. It certainly covers $800. Or $600.
And we're not counting a lot of Buzztime play at other hours.
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I guess this is why I raise the point: my economics education tells me that the 3,200-odd businesses subscribing to Buzztime are, on the whole, rational actors. Of those 3,200, Rembrandt's was in the top ten of Premium Game success. Premium Game success isn't the only metric of contribution, but it's not a bad one. We're not talking about a better-than-average mark in that metric--we're talking leadership. If any sites were making money from Buzztime, Rembrandt's was among them.
Another metric is game play. Rembrandt's site page is still up. I count 7,585 games played in the last six months. At a modest two dollars contribution to profit per player per game, that's $15,170, or $2,528 per month.
If Chef Noble threw away Buzztime, it's because he had a vision of a restaurant with a different clientele.
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But I do thank you for your kindness in disagreeing with me, Ampersand.
PS Rembrandt's Buzztime page:
http://www.buzztime.com/site/33090/games