From Bartender to Bar Owner: Andrew’s Journey
What Does It Take to Run a Bar?
Many dream of opening their own bar, but few understand the dedication, creativity, and business acumen required to make it a success. In this episode, we sit down with Andrew, a seasoned bartender who made the leap from working behind the bar to running his own venue in Copenhagen.
From London’s Bar Scene to Copenhagen
Andrew’s career began in the UK, where he developed a deep appreciation for the artistry of bartending. After mastering his craft in London’s fast-paced cocktail scene, he took a bold step forward, co-founding Gaia, a botanical-themed cocktail bar in Copenhagen. But turning a vision into reality wasn’t without its obstacles.
The Challenges and Rewards of Bar Ownership
From navigating the complexities of securing licenses and designing a standout menu to balancing creativity with business operations, Andrew shares what it truly takes to open and sustain a successful bar. He also opens up about the less glamorous side of the industry, offering an honest look at the personal and professional challenges that come with the role.
Why You Should Watch
Whether you’re a bartender dreaming of ownership, a hospitality professional looking for inspiration, or simply curious about the inner workings of the cocktail industry, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Discover Andrew’s journey, the lessons he’s learned, and what it really takes to make it in the bar business.
🔗 Watch now and get an inside look at the reality of bar ownership!
Transcript
Opening your own bar – From Bartender to Bar Owner
Auto-generated transcript; it may contain small transcription errors.
today we explore the journey from bartender to bar owner diving into creativity passion and challenges you need to overcome when opening your own venue Our Guest it's Andrew leaford a bartender turned into a bar owner his career started in London's vibrant bar scene and now continuing into a cozy little bar called Gaia cocktails in the heart of Copenhagen known for crafting Instagram wory cocktails like the bathtub Black Pearl and red Ferrari Andrew story it's all about resilience and creativity I'm your host Manuel Li and this
podcast is brought to you from my passion for the hospitality industry and the community around it welcome Andrew I can't wait to hear more about you and how you started your journey in Denmark uh originally I came here because of a Danish girl so like think of the most typical stereotype that's that's me like uh British guy meets Danish girl in London and then goes like well okay God damn it this is this is how happening and uh she basically wanted to come back to study
I was done with London at that point I wanted to do something else and so kind of was the perfect excuse and then when I moved here I was just I just fell in love with the country and this well the city um because it took me a while to actually go visit the other parts of the country and the people here are so nice I think the one thing that was like the the biggest thing of like why this place is way better it's like
in England you tell someone like all right sorry mate you've had too much to drink I can't serve you anymore it's like 50/50 you're going to get into a fight MH uh whereas here I think the first person I told like that you can't have anything else like you're too drunk they just said yeah you're probably right actually and I was like what you're reasonable like people actually are reasonable even when they've had a drink I was just like oh my God this place is amazing
people Danish people are amazing sometimes they even speak better English than we do like and that's that to me was just like oh my God yeah cuz sometimes like you can't understand English people it depends on where they're from in the country but they're like the complete Southwest no idea what they're saying but you were working in there as a bartender as well at that point where uh uh when I came here when you were in London oh yeah in London I've been at bartender since
I was uh yeah basically I was 18 actually soon as I was 18 I quit my job at ww worths which is now bankrupt uh and then I went into a pub first pint I ever poured I was like oh this is the coolest thing ever yeah pouring pints uh serving my underage friends that was a bad idea um then I moved on uh then I worked in a club in uh in Reading MH it was like a it was like a combination of the two
it was like a nightclub underneath and a comedy club on top so it's called junglers on top and then barisa underneath and then it would turn into two different disco kns at the end uh then after that I moved to Winchester and started this job in a place called pitcher and piano which is like a sort of gastro pub chain thing where I but actually before I even started working there I went in there for like a there was this James Bond theme party uh as
you do in England and um there was this guy behind the bar and he was making I didn't I didn't know what it was at the time but he was making he was making a drink and then he took some cocoa powder and he and he flamed it up and I was just like what is this cuz like up and and by that point I was 19 and up until that point I never really knew what a cocktail was like I didn't even know what cocktails
were and I thought like I I just saw that for the first time I was like I need to do this this is really cool it turns out that cocktail was a screaming orgasm um so he was making it in a hurricane glass he' Lac chocolate around the inside of the glass so it looked like a like a chocolate milkshake and I was like oh my God alcohol that's a chocolate milkshake oh yeah this is this is me mindblowing yeah honestly I I think I spent
the next month drinking on like two I think it was two for one on every Monday I was drinking two for one screaming orgasms and then I just I didn't realize that I slowly just piled on so much weight I was like where the I didn't even realize why it was happening as well why am I getting fat so you fall in love with the industry just because of that yeah yeah because of that ctail I thought it was just like cuz it looks so cool
I really like the idea of flaming cocoa po cuz like everyone around everyone looking at the drink is like wo cool that's fun um so yeah I set my CV in the next day and uh they they hired me and then I found out like a month later that they said like I I just put in the work I just cuz I really really wanted to work there I uh I dropped everything uni I went to UNI for like a month before I was like this
is not for me okay and so during that time that's when I found this job um and then I just decided to work there full-time and uh after a month of working there and like just becoming good that making the drinks and everything they were just they told me yeah so we only hired you because we were we were really desperate but but now you've kept the job because you're actually good at this so you started as a bartender not as a runner like everybody else
no I started yeah straight away like just straight away just behind the bar like got taught got taught bits and pieces by by one of the guys that works there who had a hangover uh which is pretty normal yeah is what I what I began to learn was pretty normal uh and I worked there for like I think about a year and a bit uh but I wanted to because I wanted to make it my career I think that was the point where i' I'd learned
how to make the cocktails I knew how to make them really fast I knew how to how to like just interact with the guests at the bar I did the Red Bull Red Bull can trick on the hand there's even a there's one of my old profile pictures where we like dressed up for Halloween yeah I've like shaved half my hair for uh because I dressed up his too fac it was pretty cool um and yeah I was so proud of the Red Bull can trick
because that was my first bit of flare uh and um but that's but then I felt like okay well I've done I feel like I've I've learned what I can in this place and like I want more and they said yeah so if you if you move to London and go work at the one in Richmond which is along the temps that has a massive outside Terrace if you can work there for a summer then you can work in any picture and piano around around uh
Europe Europe uh the UK the UK so I've said okay cool I'll do it moved straight to London worked the one in Richmond all summer and uh try like and it was it was chaos but it was great like you're 19 20 years old and it's just so busy and hectic all the time but you're you're in it with all the other people as well it was just it was great time time just goes by so quickly so it was the same place where you met
your girlfriend yeah it was the same it was basically their their Flagship place um it was one of the one of the first places that opened I think the first one they had was in Fulham um and then they opened Richmond Bishop's gate uh I can't remember the others one in Bank One in Bank actually uh and yeah this one is just busy every day um and it's yeah it's just it was a cool place to work and while I was there um I always used
to get there was this cocktail bar um just literally around the corner from it uh and I always used to go in there and like the first time I got taken over there I just saw these guys just like grabbing bottles off the back bar and just like free pouring into tins and like no measurements no jiggers nothing because like up until this point like everything is with a [ __ ] of course like like you measure everything exactly otherwise it's going to be wrong but these guys
are free pouring juices syrups um Spirits like all all like in the ex in the things that they should be so like a uh store and pores for the juices speed poures on the on the syrups and the spirits um so that they can like to me I just felt like they were just making it up as they went along um and then they would pour into the tin spindle mix it Pour it into the glass perfect every single time and this guy's got like 20
drinks on the mat and he's just like free pouring free pouring stuff and just like anyone who comes through the door he just like saying Hi how are you doing and then they they just come in and sit down like I'm like oh my God how are you doing this but yeah so and I also just felt like oh my God is there more is is there another level to this and I just thought free pouring cocktails them getting on the b top throwing crushed ice
in the air throwing napkins at people I'm just like oh my God it's so cool and it just made what I was doing seem so boring um but yeah that's just kind of how the progression went eventually I I asked for a job there um went through the training there was 250 250 cocktails that they they have on their menu that you just have to know off by heart so the final bit of training in terms of the theory was uh you have to do what's
called a top 100 yeah so you have to take they take a random 100 cocktails on the menu and then you just have to write down all the ingredients and Al you do not have to make them no no no it could have been a nice uh nice introduction so once you once you get past the the the the top 100 you'll have what's called like your final bartender certification where one of like the the head trainers will come in into your bar and they will
just see how you interact with the guest see how you bartend and then they'll ask for a drink and they'll ask for a couple of drinks and just just just see if you have what it takes to work in that company um but yeah there's also a free pouring free pouring test so you had to do 72 different free poures and you have I think you have to get it 100% correct okay that's a we're very strict on the free pouring like and you would do
a free pouring test every before every shift because you're free pouring everything and you want you want to make sure that the guest is always getting like the same drink um whoever failed the fre po test that day would be on the floor okay I I was always put on the floor um but I don't think it wasn't because like we all got like we all did the same same speed test we all got the same marks basically but there were bartenders in my bar who
were just way better than me and I was actually pretty good at the floor oh that actually reminds me of a story actually uh but yeah so this company is was called um B at1 and it's now the it's now the biggest bar ctail bar chain in the whole of the UK they have so many bars it was started by three guys who um who worked at tji Fridays one of them one of them was a guy called Lee who was um like the he was
the flare bartender Champion two years in a row um he was like one of the first people that would flip a drink like that had a drink in it like on his on his hands and um yeah they they took out car loans to to open to just yeah take M say they were going to buy a car and then they just turned it into a bar paid their car loans back very quickly because they were really good at what they did I think they started
it because um they didn't like the fact that TGI Fridays was turning into more of a restaurant so they they wanted to keep that fun yeah keep it focused I guess that you know they grew up with cocktail and you moved in here with the with the company or you just move in here because of the the girl how did you end up in here oh yeah sorry oh my God I went off I just started talking about random stuff uh I moved here yeah I
moved here with the girl um but she became a student I stayed a bartender so we split like our our parts just were were messing with each other too much I was coming home really late so I'm quite a lot of the time drunk and she was not drinking like that much anymore she done with she was done with the party lifestyle uh I was still I was still very happy to be a party bartender and so yeah we just we ended up splitting up uh
but I stayed because yeah I just love love the city and uh yeah fast forward years like now I I have a I have a girlfriend who's like the right person for me yeah so she understands that it comes with more the whole life of bartending SL owning the place yeah cuz right now you are not a bartender anymore that much right cuz you still going behind the bar I've seen you a couple of times behind the bar so yeah so definitely yeah I mean the
transition from bartender to bar owner I think I've been very lucky with that sort of thing because I have two business partners who uh like who have have their own like strengths in in this business for example one of our partners Ricky he already owns two bars so he's literally there to just tell me and Seb like if whatever whatever is happening if we're doing doing stuff wrong like things that he's experienced in the past and like you know I trust I trust everything he says
like so he I'm really grateful that he's like there for that so he's also taught me like a lot and Seb is really Seb is really really good with the back of house stuff my strength is doing the front of house so in that sense like really like I feel like I'm I might I own the bar but I'm also just the bar manager so you somehow complete each other on the on it yeah definitely how hard was the transition for you from the bartender from
the moment when you realized okay now is the time that I'm or maybe not realize that now is the time when I'm moving to the next step step but also it was a shift into into the career so how was it when it was that moment when you realized okay I'm done with bartending where I don't want to bartend every single day of my life and I want to open my own place yeah yeah that's what I the weird thing was is like yeah you we
all imagine like that's the goal like I want to well everyone's goals are different but this was mine like was to be the bar owner and then like have that sort of financial freedom in a sense uh I which I felt like I was kind of getting towards that but the more I've been away from the bar the more I feel like I don't know what to do like it's it's all I've done for since I was 18 years old like so being the more involved
I am the actually more happy I feel um so yeah like I don't want to be a like I don't know a 50-year old bartender but so there's definitely something I need to figure out along the way to like be involved with the business but not have to be behind the bar the whole time although there is there is a certain thing of just like people come to the bar and they do they expect they say well where's Andy so there is that kind of thing
as well yeah people come in there for for the people not for the dreams or not for the everything else it's a whole vibe that it's a people will like people we don't know they will will come for the drinks but they will stay because of the service that they get y like it's the difference between buying one drink or or many yeah is something I always try and tell tell the stuff like we have we have like service standards of just like the way to
treat a guest from the moment they walk through the door to the moment they leave like they just need to feel they need to be feel happier than when they came through the door and uh What uh what are some skills actually what uh what are the skills that as a bartender you have it as a bar owner or what you had to learn new stuff from uh from being a co-owner of the bar or owner of the bar did you have to learn other stuff
that you've learned while being a bartender or did you had to do a whole transition into it I feel like a lot of the skills as a bar owner uh and a bartender well I would say more bar manager are trans are very transferable like being really humble like not not rising to an argument like just for me at least being being very cool-headed about whatever situation you're in like makes things makes your life a lot easier like the the staff or the P like they
they look up to you to basically have the answer for everything so you just need need to have you need to be very solution oriented and that's kind of what you learn as from being a bar manager the bar manager is like their last resort is ask the owner but you don't have that as the owner you are the last resort so like you just need to have the answer for everything you can't just be like I don't know U so yeah I feel like yeah
just having the answer for everything is always is always good and um and if you don't have it I suppose I don't know I don't feel like I've I mean some there are sometimes yeah maybe when staff asks me something and I'm like I don't know but I feel like that makes it seem like I'm a human like I don't have the answer for everything but also it's okay that you don't have the answer for it like then then we will we don't have the answer
now but we'll find a solution like along the way so yeah I think that that's basically this like the one skill that I feel like has been transferable a new one I learned that just sort of happened when you're the owner you just don't you don't there's no like oh I want to have a day off it's just like I'll just do it yeah you just work yeah you just work you just you don't even think about day off I think seven me worked basically like
the the first year we were closed Sundays and Mondays so Sunday was for our hangover sorry yeah Sunday was for our hangover we would go out Saturday night and just be like woo that was great loved it it was awesome like we made like almost no money but it was still good uh yeah so we would have a hangover Sunday Monday I would come in and do the ordering and start a little bit of prepping and then we would just be open Tuesday to Saturday and
we would just do it every day and what the what were the challenges in the first year cuz I mean opening a new place in a completely different country from you becoming coming here from London what were the main challenges when you open it for the first year um realizing all the things that you need to have just in order even though I had Ricky there to like say you need to have this like all of these things like your alcohol license um you need to
talk to all the suppliers Etc um I guess I didn't realize like quite how much no one no one realizes quite how much you actually have to do um but we're so lucky that Seb is also a carpenter so like in terms of the construction of the bar like I basically just listened to everything that he said um and that includes like not treating the band saw with absolute respect because I nearly took my hand off with it um so yeah I think yeah just um
that's why I said like I I was very lucky because I had those two around MH um just making sure that you are are as organized as possible cuz yeah I'm not I'm very like oh maybe I'll do this today or maybe I'll do that sort of whatever I mean you are more on the creative side because everybody who's been to GA knows all of the crazy stuff that you are doing yeah yeah and in a good way not in a in a bad way I
mean some of them some of them are good some of them I'm like some of them I've just been like why did I do that um so but it's yeah I I learn from each of the ones that I do um yeah and I'm very very happy I just I'm happy that I got I'm doing something that makes me happy at the same time and the fact that that's that in turn is is making like the people like it as well like tourists coming into the
bar they're saying like I want that bathtub cocktail like so it's a very it is very instagrammable drinks it's very gimmicky it's like it's just that's I like the fun the fun aspect mhm definitely I'm I'm not like a super professional but and uh like I never I never had like like a special training apart from working at B1 um but I've just I've just seen seen stuff like I got heavily inspired by The Alchemist in in London um because they use dry ice and they
like they're really successful and they they've grown massively they started in Manchester and now they're huge like and I just thought this is something that no one's doing here like this is a niche in the market like I thought like everyone thinks dry ice is cool like why not why not try it no I believe I mean you said the whole point from the career from the moment one when you enter behind the bar was like you've been open to experience like you've been open to
learn even more and more and more and I believe that's a one of the biggest strengths that a bartender or bar manager or owner has it and I've noticed it into every single person that I talked with and they are successful like you like you are not stopping learning like you never stop learning I mean definitely yeah I mean I feel like you always like in in any job I feel like you always want to learn more there's always some more that you can do um
like Bill Gates reads like I don't know 20 books a week or something stupid he's he's always learning stuff I'm definitely not comparing myself to Bill Gates here I'm just saying that you know successful people do that sort of stuff um I always do think that there is something else I could learn what that is I don't know right now but um like I do feel like maybe at some point people are going to be fed up with dry ice drings they're not going to think
it like all the stuff that we're doing maybe they don't think it's fun anymore but then that's that's for us to look at and then just be like all right guy needs to go in another Direction like whatever is basically trending I feel like that's the sort of thing that we would need to that's the direction we need to go in what are the trends right now what is it going in the at the moment really people who love their social media right everyone's always on
Instagram everyone's just constantly I'm doing it as well like I think I spent a lot of my day on on Instagram just going through videos just seeing different stuff there's this guy I completely unrelated to bartending there's this guy I follow who's like an ultra Runner and he loves listening to film music while he runs I'm like that's me love that um but yeah like so if people want to put something on Instagram because the the people that post on Instagram it's normally for themselves or
to give advice to other people like if they want to have a if they want to post cocktails like it's going to look even more fun or more different if they have like one in a bathtub or one in a seel you know because then people would be like ask questions where is that where is that where were there any moment after you opened it like that you had in mind okay maybe it's not a good choice opening a bar I don't know I'm just asking
because I haven't opened a bar yet but it's all the time you thinking should I or should I not yeah yeah I spent I spent two years uh working work at um barowski thinking should I or shouldn't I literally the my decision was I went away for summer and uh well for summer for a week to visit my my family and I said I want to come away from this holiday with either I'm going to open my own bar in Copenhagen or I'm going to leave
the country and go and do something else because I feel like I just was hitting a dead end then yeah ultimately I decided open a bar and Ricky went looking for one and I think when I made the decision like it was just no looking back it was just like this is happening and I was just like going through the renovations and everything I was just like I don't I I just want to get to start making Jinx actually no at the beginning of renovation it
was really fun because it was like we're slowly building this like cool thing and I knew that I wanted to put fairy lights in the ceiling with Vines and as soon as we put those up straight away I was like o people are going to like that it's going to look cool um so yeah I like you didn't really think about it you just went you just go straight into it at least that was my that was my feeling it wasn't I wasn't thinking like what
if it fails all I was thinking was just like I just want the bar I want to get the bar open and I want to just keep doing this I think was it hard to open it in the beginning cuz for instance what it takes to open a bar in Copenhagen how how hard is it if you what actually you need what the recipe not the perfect recipe because it will never be a perfect recipe or a slow P like Smooth P but uh what do
you need the most do you need money do you need the people do you need all of them combined do you need to have a the greatest location in Copenhagen what uh what are some things that you looked into it in the beginning before opening I mean you definitely do need I mean you need money to to open things um but we were very lucky on that side because this was just after Corona so a lot of businesses had gone bankrupt um and so we actually
managed to find USS for a really reasonable price um but in terms of like having the money yourself you will if you really want it you will find a way to get the money it's not like it's not like I just I just saved a bunch of money I took out a loan I had to borrow from my dad um my my partners did the same thing as well so like you borrow money uh and you just you just get it enough so that you can
do it um what else were the other part of the question it was the primarily what you need a side of money let's say like that you need people you need um knowing knowing people as well definitely having connections like I was very fortunate to have Ricky as a connection MH cuz like he's already got he was what eight years eight nine years ahead of me in being an owner so he already has he already had a great stable business relationship with a lot of people
and so we were able we were able to to communicate that way um so yeah definitely having a lot of as many connections as you can get is really good but did you know knew Ricky and Sebastian before because that's another topic that I want to to touch how close were three of you when you started this project is it's a relationship right yeah like you are talking with them probably a bit not more but in equal parts as your wife yeah definitely oh yeah yeah
me and Seb were definitely we became like a married couple uh me and Ricky like so I was the bar manager of uh barowski um and now yeah and um uh have been a close friend of Ricky for like years I think since since basically I moved to this country so he's def he's one of my oldest friends um so I'd always I'd always had a bit of an issue with working for friends in the past but I'd never I never look back when I worked
for him he was always he always gave great advice sometimes very harsh advice but you know like it's it's you need to you need to hear it when it when it comes to being a business owner um so yeah we me and it was me and him initially looking for the place and then we've walked into what was uh so Gia's location uh and Seb was working in that place um and it was a place called COA before and um the owners there they wanted to
sell but Seb who was working in the bar he felt like that they could do something with this place and then we off we offered it to come and have a chat with us and just hear what I wanted to do I told him I wanted to make it into a sort of botanical gardens side up type of place I wanted to do dry ice and whatever and he was like sweet I'm in I'll do I can do all the building stuff cuz I'm a carpenter
um and then he said to me like that I can just handle the drinks cuz like that's that's the stuff I like to do uh and then Ricky can just tell us when we're screwing up which was yeah which which is what we needed to hear okay um and so that's how the partnership formed and uh and yeah since then like uh it's just been it's been it's been okay we're still we're still around but uh so it's been just over two years now um congrats
I know you had the couple of weeks ago the two years anniversary yeah yeah really yeah I'm just happy that it's uh that we're still we're still able to to make do these things but how as well how did your life change like how did your daily life change from the bartender to bar owner bar owner now not in the first year cuz in the first year I believe you've been there more than you were supposed to did you chill down a bit right now as
a bar owner or are you still going full on seven out of seven yeah so I feel like I definitely had a bit of a weird situation where I was hiring more and more people I think maybe I got a little bit tired tired of doing it all like feeling like I just have to do everything um so I hired lots of people and then I eventually took on a bar manager and then I just sort of like retracted completely uh and and yeah in that
and in that period I just didn't know what to do I just I felt like I was lost and yeah in that period I had to I had to let the bar manager go um and then since then so that was like a 3mon period and then since since then it's only been it's only been a couple of weeks since I come back but I feel so much better just being being involved um I don't need to be in like if I want I could just
be involved like once one day a week if I wanted to but that's just not really what I want I want to be I want to be around I want to do stuff um cuz it actually helps me like create drinks as well but you are working daytime now or you are working nights or both it's a it's a mixture it's like I've just taken on three new staff members so I have to I have to train those and they need day training they need night
training and I just need to make sure that if I'm not going to be around they're going to do ex the job that I want them to do um so yeah in that sense they're like a an extension of how I want things done all right so that's uh that's cool how about the relationship ship like the relationships with the other bartenders you said the connections are more more important than anything else the networking like with my staff or with other bartenders other bartenders cuz your
staff I believe you are there with them most of the time but with other bartenders I feel like at the beginning me and Seb were going out a lot and yeah just going to other bars and drinking like there was a lot of drinking in the beginning um but that's that's sort of phased off like I needed I need needed to calm down um and so the people that have sort of taken over that is like my staff that works there they they all go out
to the other bars like I definitely do feel like I could do more by going out but I'm also trying not to drink uh so by putting myself in a situation where I could drink I just feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot because I need to be in control of myself um but yeah definitely like sometimes people will be in the bar like tourists and then they'll be like oh do you have suggestions of where to go and I literally have like a list
of bars of places that they should go to and say hi to this bartender um yeah whether it's pulp uh to say hi to Spaniard Jonas or Jonas uh or going to 1656 and saying hi to all the guys there um going into Tata yeah just like any any of the bars like if they have a list and then I look at the list I'll be like you need to add this one on there as well MH um so there's definitely like a a networking thing
between all the all the people like all the bartenders like they all do know each other because people do go visit each other's bars um so yeah there is like a a sense of community if anything like they'll also go to um like cocktail um competitions where they'll get to meet each other as well yep yeah I think definitely a sense of community is a good thing no definitely is and uh you said you're not or trying not to drink anymore yeah what what happened it
was just like okay no one I could drink anything I want and no one can say anything like that was literally what it was so I just like it just slowly started I was just drinking cognac I really liked cognac at the time I still like it I still like everything um but it it eventually over over a six month period it it developed into me drinking half a bottle of cognac a day just to like like stop shaking my hands um and then drinking drinks
like there there is a video of me out there being like hi I'm Andy and this is my this was when we went to the bcas I'm like hi I'm Andy and this is my 13th drink we need to find that video to put it in there yeah yeah and like honestly there like you would think after 13 drinks you're absolutely wasted I was totally fine because I needed so much alcohol to just keep me sane not sane but just like just like stop shaking and
stuff so yeah I knew that I had a problem I had my friends come like my friends came I didn't have them do it my friends came to my apartment gave me an intervention and then I was like I think they were wondering if I was going to get angry at them I just like I just like said it's just nice that you guys care I think I wanted someone to tell me like you need to calm down uh then I I don't I because I
don't want to quit drinking like because I it's my job um but I want I just wanted to have a better relationship with it and by not going out to a bar during the week like I'm not I'm not in my mid 20s anymore I'm nearly 35 like I can't do that stuff anymore especially if I have a business to look after like that's what my staff to do my staff can go out and have as much fun as they want like cuz I know that
they'll come back in the next day and be like they'll have a hangover maybe but they'll still do a great job MH um I can't do that stuff anymore so yeah that was like a a bit of a realization six months of being really drunk uh and surprisingly enough like my liver I went to the do I went to the the hospital and they checked my liver and there're cuz I even told them I even told yeah oh my God yeah I had like a pain
in my I thought it was my appendix uh so they sent me to the hospital and then she took she took my blood and was like yeah everything's fine I was like okay cool she said but how much do you drink and I said uh probably about 10 beers a day yeah and she was like what I was like yeah I've probably been drinking like 10 beers a day for like um like a couple of months now and she went she ran downstairs to check my
liver numbers she was like okay surprisingly enough your liver is okay but I feel like you need to calm down and I was like yeah okay cool cuz that to me all I heard was like my liver's good all right I can go even harder if I want to um but yeah eventually you just realized like I'm just I'm gonna something something's going to go wrong so yeah I've just got my got my health on track um or at least trying to uh and just drinking
really when the occasion calls for it cuz the amount of shots you have to turn down when you're working behind the bar jeez so it's insane I have a question you don't have to answer if you don't have you ever had problems from the management point of VI with your staff so the staff had problems with you cuz for me personally that was the the main reason that I quitted all of my jobs it was not because of the hard work did you had any problems
with that you don't have to answer if you don't want I know it's a bit of a sensible no I'm just trying to think of a think of a time where uh staff could have been annoyed yeah maybe when I when I've had to fire some one mhm because they don't like the they don't like the reason that I gave them but that's that's it but that could also just mean maybe I'm too nice MH like absolutely I think that the stuff like I've always had
people say that I'm a really nice guy and I like to believe that I am nice and if people do the job that I want them to do like if they're not going to do the job I want them to do then I will just get rid of them no it's a it's an interesting story as well and I'm super happy that you are open to talk about it cuz there's not so many people that realize into my point of view that okay I'm I have
this openness I have this not openness like we are surrounded by alcohol we are flooded in alcohol you can drink whatever you want whenever you want even if you're a boner I believe it is not in Denmark especially it's not that much restrictions no of how much you can drink and uh I'm super happy that you brought it up as well I think that's part of it like if um if a a guest like comes into the bar like we have this regular in our bar
Chris and he he likes he likes to get us to try like some of the spirits that he brings back from Poland or whatever um and we'll just like and so we'll just have a a shot together um that's it's a small thing but it's really nice for him like he loves it um and you're you're making the guest really happy right there like if a guest says to you like oh let's have a shot together yeah like you know they feel they feel really happy
like oh I'm getting I'm doing a shot with a bartender we're having a good time I mean but now now like especially Chris he just knows that I'm not drinking like like he's happy that I'm he's happy that I'm just there at least that's that's good enough No I um I have some questions for you regarding some advices what advice would you give to somebody who would like to open his own bar like from your experience what is the one main thing that will you say
to a bartner he knows that he wants to open it what's that advice that you want to give it get get business partners don't do it by yourself I couldn't even imagine like how lost and screwed I would be if I was doing it myself like I'm like I said I was very I'm very lucky that I have two awesome awesome partners that can help with any aspect of the business um CU yeah if you if you just have to do everything like like and you're
feeling down one day no one's going to pick you up to motivate you like no one's going to tell you that you need to do it you just have to do everything yourself like imagine being hung over and you still have to do the work like at least with this like I could be hung over and then Seb would just work like we could swap and change in that sort of aspect so yeah get partners it's also cheaper like then you then you split you split
the shares and like you don't have to put in so much to begin with yeah it just feels like like at the beginning I wanted to do it myself I wanted to buy my own bar and have it myself with Ricky a little bit involved but then Ricky just said to me like if you want to do this I think you should do this with with Seb as well because like it's otherwise you're just going to be you're going to have to do so much and
you're going to screw yourself over so that was literally the best best advice I ever got was yeah do it have partners with you no absolutely and I believe it came with a lot of stress uh in a in the beginning like I see I don't know I thought it was just fun okay I don't I didn't think it was maybe it was stressful during the renovation waiting for the alcohol license because we were like cuz everything hangs on that like if you if they if
the the commune comes back and says no Then You're Screwed how much it took you to to get I think it took three four months for it to come through I think maybe four four months you were lucky you were one of the lucky ones yeah um I mean I could I mean I'm plucking that number out my head it could have been more like but I remember us waiting a while but that was also bad on for us as well because we were just we
w really done with the renovation and we were like well there's no point being done uh if we can't even serve the alcohol then Ricky was like I think you should just finish the renovation and then so that when the alcohol license comes in you're ready to go uh that was advice that I should have listened to and I was just being lazy I was being lazy um and so yeah our alcohol license came through and then we the bar wasn't done and so like I
just spent the next I think yeah Seb went away for like a week or two and then I was just like all right I need to show show my partner because we hadn't even worked together at that point I need to show him that like I'm I can do I can do a lot while he's not around and so I like literally clean got the bar like basically ready to go when he got back and he was actually surprised like how close how close we were
um nice yeah and um what uh what is next next next cuz you said you are back yeah but I believe as much as I know you I believe you're are not stopping here yeah I think we've always we've always like jokingly talked about opening another bar um it's just a question of like finding the right place um having the right amount of money um like I feel like Gia at the moment's still needs to be still needs me to be around mhm um it's not
it's not running by itself in a sense um that will come eventually and then when that happens I feel like then I can start another project but until then yeah it's just sort of weding around but I don't I don't know yeah like I really like the whole cocktail making stuff like coming up with like the new the new thing is just yeah coming up with a new another menu and just seeing if I can like wow people in another way like people come in be
like I want that weird that weird new one that you've got I mean I it's working I can tell you from my experience my sister always wanted to come to your bar and he even told me last week I want to go to the bar and get that cocktail with a with a shell you have one in the Shell I don't know the name of it that one she wants that's the stina so my girl my girlfriend went to um Sardinia with her aunt two years
ago um and uh she went to this cocktail bar and they have a light they had a Lighty cocktail on the menu which I was oh yeah like she's really good and then they also had a lemon cello cocktail I was like oh my God yeah lemon cello is really nice and then I was like oh those two would work really nice together like you lemon cello hell yeah and then I just thought all right stintino is in a in a Seaside town so therefore it
should come in a seash shell I always wanted to do a seash shell cocktail in like a con cuz it's just it looks cool and then like you put like a sea foam on it he making emion made out l g yeah just a story a story connected how do you come up with the crazy ideas that you have for cocktails how do you come up with uh birds in cages and honestly honestly it could just be randomly I would be walking down the street listening
to Han zimma music or something like that and then like idea will pop into my head I think for the first menu to because I had to have a few ideas um I was inspired by The Alchemist in London so I I definitely took a lot of their ideas because they work um but just put my own little twist on it like the high tea one um they have this this cocktail there called The Mad hats tea party uh which is really is really cool and
extravagant the way that they do it um which involves dry ice and like a lot of a lot of equipment um but we don't have the luxury of having so much space in the bar and I just thought oh yeah I don't know yeah it just it just came to me like yeah you know how you like Brew Your when you're when you make a cup of tea you normally just have a tea bag with and then you just Brew your tea and I just thought
I could make the drink if I make the drink hot and just stuff the the tea bag with dry ice that'll create a huge smoke and that loone is a really cool effect mhm um so yeah it just like one thing will come to me and then and then like Snap Snap Snap like a some things will happen like the the Black Pearl like I knew I wanted to do a a Pirates of the Caribbean themed drink um because when you reference something to like a
movie people can people people can re ize it a bit easier like when you're especially when you're giving them the story of the drink like and so okay black pearl okay literally just put a have a a shell and then make a PE a black pearl like so like automatically they're like it without the movie like you can just see all right that's a black pear that's nice yeah and then then yeah just putting gold dust in it and then saying like yeah this is the
Aztec gold of Cortez from the movie so if you drink this you're going to be cursed for the rest of your life like I mean that's just that's just fun like and I just thought okay yeah that's really cool idea so I definitely like the idea of making a movie themed drink like cuz like movie outside of Bart ending I love watching movies I've been to watch Han Zimmer twice like because his music's so cool all right I want to take so much of your time
I have actually two questions that I'm asking uh so there's two questions one it's for everybody and the other one it's uh specifically made for for you the one that uh it's for everybody if you can go back in time to younger self let's say younger Andrew when you started your career as a bartender what would you do what would you do different from what you did invest in Bitcoin put all the money I had in Bitcoin and just wait and then I I could do
any you could do anything without like uh so that's one that's MoneyWise that's what I would do differently um in terms of the bartending I feel like I wasted I wasted a lot of time um like trying to prove trying to prove myself in picture and piano um like because I'd learned I felt like I'd learned I was young and and like I definitely hadn't learned everything I needed to but I also felt like I was I wasted a bit of my career there and I
feel like I should have also uh gone and worked in other cocktail bars in London instead of just thinking B1 is the best like because there's so many other places like night jar the conal like all of these really really cool bars that I could have worked in so I would I wish I wish I did that I I know I said I have only two more for you but one just pop up into my mind and I really don't want to waste it do you
believe it's a good uh good idea to swap when you are in an early career swap as much as possible I or just uh keep it how how often do you believe to it's good to swap between jobs when you are in early career um I don't know like as in like uh like change career path change your bars change change environments I think once you've learned everything that you need to like and it doesn't become a challenge anymore then you then you should find the
next challenge because I feel like you're probably only just going to get worse at your job because you don't care as much when something doesn't become a challenge anymore it's it just feels a bit boring like the Loyalty loyalty is a good thing like if you like the person that you work for you're going to want to stay more because they make the place feel comfortable and easy to work in um but otherwise yeah you need to just I feel like you need to challenge yourself
yeah so yeah to anyone who's young who wants to start out like make sure it's always a challenge and that you enjoy that you enjoy it as long as you're CH you're either really enjoying it or it's challenging stay at it and then I have the question that it's tailor made uh for you is uh as a owner as a bar owner how many bars do you believe you can open until you you were going to stop you particularly I don't know if you could put
a number on like I feel like right now one one seems like it's it's enough um because of everything that's happened and just trying to keep it alive like one seems like enough like having to add one another one to it seems like it would just be but at the beginning me and Seb did talk about it we talked about three talked about Gia be like like our little baby have a second one which is just like a money maker mhm and the third one cuz
it would be cool if we had one like a bar in the top 50 like so that one be like the little project um cuz yeah I would really like it if uh if Copenhagen was just thought of as like a a nice place for people to come for cocktails like it's been a long time since Ruby was in the top 50 um and I do think that all the bars that are making drinks like they have great service they're making great cocktails I would like
it if if uh yeah if the top 50 bars would just re would recognize that and come spend some more time M and yeah here no absolutely I believe the same that Copenhagen deserves a bit more love in terms of top 50 we were talking in the last episode about uh why is it top 50 Asia top 50 USA but nothing in the Europe like something more specific to this region but we never know I don't know maybe it's like cu in Asia there's just so
many to choose from I don't know probably all right Andrew I would like to thank you so much for being part of it thank you for accepting the idea and I'm looking forward to have you for the next one cuz we are actually planning to do a re redo to all of the episodes that we started in the beginning so there will going to be a second episode with both of us uh talking all right so thank you so much and I really appreciate your time
and you being here yeah no worries thanks for having me cheers thank you for joining us for our first episode of barox the podcast to enjoy more of Andrew's stories visit his bar Gaia cocktails with your friends and check out his crazy cocktails this episode was produced by Mi Paul and I Manuel Li with thanks to midnight Media Company please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast be sure you subscribe and rate US you