Arcadia among crowdfunded bars coming to Portland
SOURCE / ARCADIA NATIONAL BAR
Two ambitious bar ventures opening in Portland this summer recently completed successful Kickstarter campaigns within the last month — a funding source that startups have increasingly turned to nationwide over the past few years.
While one bar is betting its success on the growing popularity of the Brooklyn-based Barcade chain and similar arcade-bar joints, the other plans to entice the city’s West End neighborhood with a fun atmosphere and rotating selection of mixed drinks and cocktails.
Riding the ‘Barcade’ wave
Arcadia National Bar, expected to open in July near Monument Square, will be a combination arcade and bar, with plans to offer a large selection of craft beers, retro arcade games, pinball machines, home video game consoles and board games. It will even a have a virtual reality headset that is being developed by a company recently purchased by Facebook.
Dave Aceto told Mainebiz that he and co-founder Ben Culver decided to start Arcadia National Bar after realizing that the success of Barcade, which has four locations in the Northeast, and similar operations across the country, could be replicated in the greater Portland area because of the region’s positive attitude about nostalgia and supporting local businesses.
The upcoming venture raised nearly $26,000 on Kickstarter in early May from 241 backers.
Aceto said that will supplement around $60,000 in private equity raised by himself, Culver and two new business partners, Jonathan GIlbert, vice president of domestic and international ecommerce at PowerPay, located right across from the bar’s 24 Preble St. location, and Garry Bracken, a licensed physical therapist in South Portland.
Without the Kickstarter funds, Aceto said, it might have been difficult to open Arcadia National Bar by this summer because it would have taken longer to raise capital. He said it’s important to open this summer because of the season’s increased foot traffic.
“We needed something to put it over the top,” he said.
If there’s one thing Aceto said he learned from running his first-ever Kickstarter campaign, it’s the legwork needed after the initial push. For him and Culver, he said, that involved using social media channels, and meeting brewers and other vendors.
“You have to keep pushing it as much as you can,” he said.
The Jewel Box
Half a mile away in Portland’s West End, Nathaniel Meiklejohn is hard at work opening The Bearded Lady’s Jewel Box at 644 Congress St. The bar, which could open in July and will largely focus on selling a rotating selection of mixed drinks and cocktails, reflects the accumulation of Meiklejohn’s eight years of experience as a bartender in Maine.
“The whole idea is to change the menu every week or so,” he told Mainebiz. “There are only a handful of ways to make drinks, but then what you can do with them is limitless.”
Meiklejohn, who began using the “Bearded Lady” moniker after he and some friends once jokingly started a “speakeasy” in his building’s basement, began his bartending career at The Liberal Cup in Hallowell. He continued at Downtown Lounge and Local 188 in Portland and most recently worked on a freelance basis with a catering company and a music venue.
Kickstarter helped Meiklejohn raise about $23,000, from 424 backers, of the $200,000 he needed to renovate the building, he said. He wasn’t initially enticed by the idea of hounding friends for money on social media, but a friend helped him see it another way.
“[She said], ‘If there was a time people would like to be involved in something [that would be] positive and happy, it would be a good idea,’” he said. “And for me, that’s how I justified it, knowing that it could be a way for people to feel like they could be a part of it.”
Meiklejohn said one of the big lessons he learned from running the Kickstarter campaign was the need to personally reach out to people. That’s what he realized when his campaign still needed to raise about two-thirds for his Kickstarter goal within about a week.
“I have 1,500 friends on Facebook,” he said, “so I exported my friends list and went through the contacts [and started sending personal messages.]”
Most Recent
Most Recent
Comments