I’ve posted in the business forums, but should really get started here. This is what I wrote below. Would love feedback from all you folks out there. Thanks…

Hi there,

Thinking seriously about moving to Spain. Here is some background:

My wife (who is spanish) and I (english) currently live and work in england, but are sorely tempted to take over her Dad?s traditional village bar in Cuenca province. After travelling the world and seeing many good ideas being used we are hoping to make small changes to the bar during our time running it. Of course, change for village locals means a big thing and it could be that it won?t be approved of and they will go elsewhere.

Currently, the guy running it (renting it from my wife?s dad) is very poor at it. He doesn?t clean enough, the food is only available if he feels like providing it (and its poor quality and choice), and he?s lost the account with the provider of the Mahou beer due to non payment of bills. He also only opens the bar when he is well enough to bother, i.e. not hungover.

We want to freshen the place up, but add some continental twist to it. We are both more than capable cooks and have a work hard play hard ethic. My wife used to help run the bar when her parents were running it themselves before they retired. She knows how hard it is to run the place when it is popular. She wants to add some continental breakfast/lunch/dinner options to a blank menu and see if it will attract all the main road users and passing custom (its by a main road) to stop for something to eat, not just ?al muerzo? but maybe stop for their main lunch. We?re both capable at preparing bistro style meals. We would like to add some comfort like a couple of sofas, show digital quality tv on a widescreen, and a few other minor additions. The bar property has rooms which we could make self contained and let out or make like a ?casa rural?.

The main change is that we want to make it non smoking. This is something which we are not sure will be appreciated, but we are willing to provide a sheltered outdoor area for smoking. We need this to be accepted as we have a 1 year old and our current living is clean and healthy so would like to maintain that.

Another reason for moving is that my Dad is willing to rent his property down in Andalucia to me for a token amount each month. This is something I feel has potential to let to holiday makers. We know a few people in that town who can help us with the business side of things.

However, all the above potential doesn?t take away the fact that Spain (and the rest of the world no doubt) is going to be in a very slow period of activity and venture over the next few years. For this reason we are grateful for our jobs but it is not fulfilling enough now. My wife has always wanted to return to Spain with a view to going into business. We?ve saved hard for the last 15 years and now want to reap on the efforts made where we will eventually build a casa rural type of property in spain somewhere before our government really ruin and undo all our hard work and savings.

The idea is to run her dad?s bar like a pilot scheme where we introduce new things and see how they go. We supplement our income by trying to rent out my dad?s property in Andalusia.

When things brighten up and we?ve found our dream location we snap up a property and do it up and start our casa rural hotel business. All this sounds like dreamland at the moment and its like I need to take a reality check, but its what my wife now wants to do.

Our instincts are telling us that its now or never. All this will take some investment, but is now not the time to be carrying out such ambitions?!

If you?ve got a comment to make or some advice then I?m all ears and ready to listen.

Oh, and sorry for the long post!

Oh, and by the way, we?re both 36 years old. Are we too young for this?!

Steve

well its a spaanish bar , with some bad management running it , , you talk about change the place , dont for get spanish people dont like big changes , Non Smoking ..... dont think so , that will kill any trade , what about non smokeing area where food , A bar with out smoking in spain , dont think tht will catch on with passing trade are loacls , i pm you have chat with you please get in touch with me
jurdy

If Cuenca is anything like our part of Granada, then my comments may be helpful.  I know two or three places close to us that have tried to do non-traditional and/or original food, trendy interiors etc.  They have largely depended on ex-pats and visitors (including Spanish city people) rather than the indigenous local village population.  The successful places are full-on, large restaurants to which people will make a special trip, not wee bars that get passing village trade.  They also make full use of websites, ads and good reviews in guidebooks and newspapers.  Where the international or modern approach has been tried on a small scale it hasn’t really worked.  It seems if you have to keep the cash-flow going with the inumberable coffees, breakfast tostadas and beers that locals demand of a village bar, you have to stick to the tried and trusted set-up.  Maybe you could get started, win the trust of your regulars, and then introduce innovations bit by bit? To be honest that would be a pretty good business plan in any country/culture.

There are now quite a few non-smoking bars in Spain, but they are mostly in big cities where there is a critical mass of people who want them. Smoking is still seen as entirely acceptable in rural Spain, although it is changing, and the idea of a non-smoking dining room with smoking allowed in the bar, as Jurdy suggests, is pretty well accepted in the Alpujarra; in fact it’s the law if the floor area of the establishment is over a certain limit - 100 square metres, I think it might be, but I’m not sure.

Yeah thanks for the input. I was thinking of a little change bit by bit.

Wife thinks locals won’t accept a lot of changes at once and she’s probably right as I know how they are. However, the bar is inconsistently open and service is patchy to say the least. The bar is quite small and there isn’t room to have separate dining area.

The smoking issue is a big one, but we’ll have to try and find a solution somehow.

Hi steve, My parents used to own a transport cafe in lincolnshire.Scuffy-ist looking place you ever did see.Empty hotel used to over shadow the 70 seater cafe.There was also a little chef direct across the other side of the road,which ended up on the market.
Cafe was full of trucker, business folk,tourist you name it. Due to local gov being painful on development issues they sold up and move to Spain.Best move they made.
  So what iam i saying, reputation is key. people always need to eat. good quality food for there monies.And the spanish taxes have got to be a plus.I say get out of britain whilst you still can,Cos the big tub is sinking day by day.Weather is good too.
=wiskers=

Thanks for the encouragement! Its going to be a big step for us as we are giving up fairly decent jobs that pay pretty well, but my company keep telling me to do alot of ‘self training’ to learn more stuff and my heart isn’t in it anymore. Plus they are off shoring much of my work out to India which tells me the writing is on the wall. Th cheek of it all is that they want me to train the Indians how to do my work. No way jose! They can stuff it - I’m not falling for that one and I intend to take all the product knowledge away with me. Not spiteful in any way of course 😉