Best Expat Bar on the Planet? (ex-North America)

If I want to open my bar before I turn 45, I need to start my research now. I've been to a few gems in Europe and North Africa, but I can't say I've found my flat-out-wet-dream epic traveler's bar yet.

My baby would have some or all of the following characteristics in no particular order: an atmosphere like you have walked into another universe that is at once familiar and enigmatic; backpacker friendly though not overrun by backpackers; Guinness on tap; craft beer brewed in the back; NO massive screens playing live sports, in fact no screens of any sort; books (yes, books) of poetry piled to the ceiling; a tradition of playing Rolling Stones hits at 5 am that provokes spontaneous singalongs at the same time it brings grown men to tears before last call; a palpable feeling in the richness of humanity upon exiting.

Ring any bells?

Edited by: lightstays

I hate to be the first to bust your bubble but even if you find a bar like that it would be difficult to emulate to the extent you have here. One can't plan things like welcoming backpackers but not being overrun by them or spontaneous singing to the Stones. With book of poetry piled in the corner and the Stones playing you'll probably attract hippy-type people. If that's what you're looking for, go for it but you might want to consider other styles of beer along with the Guiness. None of the hippy-type people I know drink Guiness.

Expat bars and bars recommended by LP is what I avoid. They stink one way or another, and attract loads of weidos, so just go ahead.

You'd never make a dime.

Or a Peso.

Or a Peseta.

Or an Escudo.

Or a Shilling.

The key to a successful business is to provide something other people want, not just what you want. And something enough other people want for you to make money from it. You have a dream, which is a great place to start, but be prepared to modify it to take account of your location, customers etc, or you'll be out of business and out of pocket very quickly.

You don't mention if you've decided where your bar should be, but start with that, work out your budget for starting the business and then start researching what you'll actually need to set up a bar in that location. Yes that's the boring bit, but does have to be done.

Best of luck

You can't always get what you want.

You know, when I was a barfly--back before I discovered it was both cheaper and more pleasant to drink at home--I frequented bars with the characteristics mentioned by the OP. But never all of them at once. I could point you to that bookish, TV-less bar in Beijing, the sing-along bar in Scotland, and that fabulous off-the-beaten-track microbrewery any number of places in the Western US. But all these things don't naturally fit together.

And #5 is right. A Bar of Dreams ("If I build it, they will come") is something of a fantasy. Given the low margins on the business, you've got to worry about appealing to customers first, indulging your own whims second. And the reality is that many "travelers" enjoy precisely the things you decry, at least by implication: insipid, generic lagers, blaring TVs, and an atmosphere of easy hook-ups. The qualities you describe are more usually valued by locals, who, in any case, are any bar's bread and butter, unless your dream location is Khao San Road or the like.

Would it not be more rewarding to invest the money in more travelling rather than in a bar?

Return on investment could be more fulfilling!

Oh, heck, I'm being philosophical and it isn't even 9am on a Sunday morning here in the UK...

Good concept but you would have to offer more to make it viable...maybe buy a big house and turn it into a bnb or just rent rooms to travellers in an area that would attract the right clientel, and turn a section of it into your dream bar and then you would have a captive audience/clientelle. Flipside...all this takes money.

If you want to open a bar that caters to North American expats, limiting yourself to attracting backpacker type clientele might be a mistake.
My favorite expat bar has Live music on weekends and a big ass screen with an NFL feed for Sundays and Mondays. It's the busiest expat bar around for that reason. I can't see poetry and books being a big attraction for expats in a bar setting. Maybe a few nights a week as a theme or book exchange and see how it goes, but you are opening this bar to be successful, right?
Not sure how Guinness fits in when you wrote that you're opening a bar geared for expat North Americans.
This is my favorite expat bar that I frequent regularly.
http://roadhouse169.com/

I also can't see expats going for poetry. I can see them going for sports, especially sports from home. (Notice all the posts on TT about "where can I watch Home Country Sporting Event in Name of City?") And newspapers from home. And beer from home, not Guinness, unless your primary clientele are already Guinness drinkers.

And, somehow, I don't see the kind of people who want a quiet place with books and no TV also being the kind who break out into singalongs at 5AM. I fact, I'm not sure I see them out drinking at 5AM.

I've written about this before.

In one of my incarnations, I was part owner of a bar/restaurant. Not for expats, but here in the US. If we hadn't gotten lucky and grossed so much at the beginning, we'd have been out of business in a month. We had no idea what we were doing and made a lot of stupid mistakes.

One mistake as that the majority owner wanted to created the bar of his dreams, but we quickly discovered that we had to make changes if we were going to survive. For example, he wanted to sere the kind of food he'd like to eat in such a place. But it was too expensive. People have an expectation of the price of bar food. We couldn't serve what Mr. Majority wanted at a price our customers would pay. So our choices were to either scale back on the food or sell it at a loss.

He liked to drink fancy liqueurs and ordered a ton of them. Customers weren't interested, so we had all this useless inventory.

We also had no idea how much work it would be.

I use to go to a bar in Bangalore called Cosmo village, it was up a very steep sharp edged concrete staircase ( I know this because I fell down it when I was pissed) had 2 floors and a rat infested roof terrace. they served warm Kingfisher and domestic spirits and the worst food I had ever encountered, and on Friday night (expat night) it was heaving. I don't know what attracted so many expats, because it surely wasn't the booze or food, they did have a dj playing up tempo dance music, athough you weren't allowed to dance and they also had scrabble boards but you never saw anyone playing and it wasn't as if there was nowhere else to go. I guess it was just a meeting place for expats. Other places had pool tables and cheesy theme nights with resident singers / bands, but none were as busy as Cosmo, maybe the formula was not to do anything.

Has anyone ever thought "This is a great bar, but it needs more poetry books"?

Not me. I find they get difficult to read after awhile.

Heck, I don't even recall walking into a bar and thinking "Dang! There's nothing to read in here."

I don't think those poetry books are going to last very long anyway. The best ones will walk off. The others will get beer spilled on them, be thrown across the room, get pages torn out of them, be covered with sticky residue from readers who are reciting poetry while eating a hamburger, fall on the floor & get stomped on, and otherwise be destroyed. If the bar allows smoking, the occasional bonfire might occur.

Has anyone ever thought "This is a great bar, but it needs more poetry books"

No - but I've often thought, "Wow this beer's great, but they could do with lowering the price somewhat".

No - but I've often thought, "Wow this beer's great, but they could do with lowering the price somewhat

Great minds do think alike! ;)