1. Look for the up sale – The obvious up sale on the consumer side is concessions. We started with bottle/canned soda, chips and candy. Eventually, we upgraded to more of a cafe that served sandwiches, fountain sodas, Italian Sodas, and Hot Chocolate. There were some remodel costs involved but we were able to do it fairly economically.
Another up sale opportunity is the bands/artists that play at the venue. The nice thing is that with any service, you can apply what you would paid them toward the service, so the money doesn’t have to come out of their pocket. Think about what kind of additional services you can provide. One of those is providing a live recording of the show. At the very least, If you want to keep it simple, you can throw up a pair of condenser mics and record to a laptop. Another up sale ideas to bands is custom one inch buttons. You can buy a button machine and die cutter for around $200. The materials for buttons cost about 5 cents a piece. I would typically sell 100 buttons to bands for $35, leaving $30 for about an hour of work. Not bad.
There are plenty of other side businesses you could pursue to leverage your network of bands and the potential to keep more of a cut from the door: merchandise such as t-shirts, selling local CDs on consignment, etc.