Looking for advice - Bar Manager/start-up
For those of you who are on the smaller side, do you find it necessary to have a bar manager or do you just pass those duties to your GM? We are currently resurrecting a well loved local bar. Between us, we have about 60 years combined experience in the industry and a strong background in the financial industry. None of us have any experience actually running a restaurant though. We are planning on hiring about 5 servers, and 4 bartenders. We do plan on having a kitchen manager and about 4-5 cooks.
Second question for those who started with no staff: how far out from your forecasted opening date did you start hiring? How many hours of training did you provide before starting?
And lastly, for those who had a soft opening, did you just jump in feet first the next day or did you take time to review your performance and add more training.