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SHOOTERS OF SAGINAW *
Voted One of the Top 100 Restaurants &
Clubs in the United States by National Trade Magazine
By Robert E. Martin
One solution?
Hire a 'funny-man' with years of experience in
the restaurant & radio industry and 25 years of experience as a professional
stand-up comic to run your operation, and before you know it you'll be honored
as one of the Top-100 restaurants & clubs in the United States.
Such is the case with Dan Ballard,
general manager of Shooters of Saginaw, which recently received
notoriety by being honored by the Editors of the national industry publication
Nightclub & Bar Magazine as one of the Top 100 Clubs for its
outstanding efforts & achievements in the beverage & food industry.
Mainly known for the huge industry Expo held in
Las Vegas each year that draws 15,000 people from across the country, each
year Nightclub & Bar Magazine canvases all the beer & liquor
distributors across the United States to determine who is doing the largest
purchases. They then compare this data to the per capita population in that
area to extract clubs throughout the U.S. that shows the most success.
"When I first heard we were selected, I thought
it was some kind of scam," laughs Ballard. "But after speaking to the editors
and finding how they compile data to make the selection, and then having them
fly people in to look at the club, I realized they were legitimate and
ecstatic to have Shooters selected in the Top 100 Clubs
nationwide."
"The key is the per capita population
comparison to the volume of sales, "explains Dan. "If we were operating in
Detroit or New York, we wouldn't show up on the volume scale. But because we
are located in Saginaw and doing such a volume of sales, the number skewed so
high over the norm for an area this size nationally, that they decided to take
a closer look at us."
According to Dan, the key to Shooters
success resides in the diversity of their entertainment formats and
willingness to always try something new.
"The size of this place is an issue," explains
Dan, "which is why we're closed on Monday & Tuesday. We simply can't put
enough people in here on those nights to justify opening. But it's like
throwing darts - we keep trying different things until something hits the
bullseye."
"Everything feeds off the other here,"
continues Dan. "Located where we are in Shields and outside of town, you can't
really go to a movie or shop at a mall. So for the first four-and-a-half years
that Shooters opened, it offered people a place to eat a good meal, go
next door to watch a comic at the Comedy Club, and entertain them in
the game room. But even that runs thin after awhile."
During those first four-and-a-half years
different managers ran the club, until finally Ballard told the owner that he
wanted to take a shot at running the place, which he has been doing for nearly
eight years now.
"Shooters was always 21 and over and the first
thing I did was turn it into an 18 and up club," notes Dan. "A large portion
of our night time dance crowd are in their early 20s and what happens is that
one or two of their friends are 19 and 20. If you have seven people coming to
the club and two can't enter, immediately you lose seven customers. So we
increased the security staff, watch closely for underage drinking, and created
a more controlled environment, and the minute we went to 18 and up our numbers
exploded."
"We always concentrate on adding new things
here," continues Dan. "Now we've built the dance cages and always look for new
contests and ways to tweak enthusiasm. We're concentrating on developing a
staff of fun and entertaining cocktail girls in the evening, with more
customer interaction."
"As for the Comedy Club, it's always carried
itself and is doing stable. But I also had to fight for that because it
carries invisible numbers that you don't always see. The suggestion was made
to stop comedy in the summer, but my feeling is you need to stay consistent.
If something isn't working you need to stick with it, so the customer doesn't
think about whether or not he should make the trip over."
"My philosophy is to always do something
different while retaining consistency with the fundamentals. I just like to
throw things at the public and see what they'll catch. Everyone always says if
the girls come the guys will follow, but then I started putting guys in cages
for a Friday dance night and the women went insane. You've never heard
anything louder than 200 women screaming out of their minds when these guys
are up in the cages. Whatever is fun to see is important."
Having conquered the nightclub & comedy
components, according to Dan the restaurant component is the most challenging.
"The restaurant business is the toughest in the
world. I have a background in it working at Holly Hotel, but it's a different
venue here. We offer some very unique items for dinner and now I'm focusing on
developing the finest Chicago Deep Dish Pizza in the area. We went to the
Neapolitan Bakery and had them develop different dough and before the fall
we'll have the best deep-dish pizza around. We'll keep all the interactive
foods that work, but also keep our labor & food costs down. We'll also be
increasing our take-out business and offering delivery to the immediate area
in the fall. Mainly, I'm gearing the menu to foods that are easier to
maintain. Right now we're too diversified in terms of food, offering
everything from hot dogs to prime rib. And one of the plus factors is that we
can deal with banquets very easily. There aren't very many places where you
can walk in with 20 people and not require a reservation."
"To his credit," comments Dan, "Spence
Dambro really kicked off our food business on a strong footing. When he
acted as general manager at Shooters before I arrived, the restaurant ran
efficiently and consistently provided good food. Spence knows how to run a
restaurant."
Having brought the other components into play,
the next area Dan started to develop is that of live music.
"Shoun Walla, my assistant manager, is
responsible for much of the success we've had with live bands," states Dan.
"He told me it would work and it does. The masses go on the dance floor but
often migrate over to listen to live music, and a lot of these local bands
self-promote like nothing I've ever seen."
"We're offering a Battle of the Bands on
Thursday nights with the finals at the end of August and bring in larger bands
now and then, but find a much better response with local people rather than
national acts. I think they're more driven to make themselves happen. The
bands we feature do original music and one group that stands out to me in
terms of development & drive is the band DVS. They're extremely
talented and give audience their money's worth. And then we have the 'staples'
like Killshot and Burnaround. Hell, half of the bands that play
here seem to work in my kitchen!," laughs Dan.
"But the live music wasn't something that
people jumped on right away. We've got a diversified offering of live bands
now, but I think people think so highly of places like Whites and
The Hamilton St. Pub because they're more intimate environments to catch
live bands. Still, I feel we've become known as one of the better places to
come and see bands. And nobody can come in from outside the area and beat our
local bands, because there are too many good ones."
 What
about the man that makes all this happen? In short, how does Dan Ballard
manage to wear so many multiple hats?
"I micro-manage a lot," he laughs. "The key is
hiring good people that you can trust. All I have to do is keep my eye on
them. It may seem like an awful lot to do, but with good people working with
me and covering my ass, it makes it easy and a joy to come to work each day.
For example, one of my cocktail girls is a hula-hoop champion, so now she's
teaching the other girls to hula on the bar. That fits in with the new ideas
we were talking about earlier, and I didn't even think of it!"
And with 25 years as a professional comic
behind his belt, how does Dan find the time to keep his skills fresh in the
comedic arena?
"I have a hard time doing comedy," confesses
Dan, "and don't do it every week. When I am on the road I'll drive a lot and
get my show honed, but it's easy to get burned out on all the travel. I
haven't done a show in about a year, so now when I do go on the stage, most of
the material will be brand new. I'll have all these jokes running in my head
and then tee something off and see where it goes."
"Mainly, I do a lot of improvisation and let
the crowd dictate how the show will go. If they leave a door open, I'll run
through it. But if I feel that door closing, I'll start to hit them with
straight spots. Dick Dunlop taught me that years ago - how to take a
20-minute show and turn it into an hour. But I was accepted into the comedy
world fairly quickly."
"I went from making $300 a week to $1000 a week
and did a national college tour for four years. I was nominated College
Entertainer of the Year for three of those years and set a record for more
shows in one year than any college entertainer. I did 298 shows in one year
and you couldn't get me to work hard enough, which was the dumbest thing I did
in my life."
"Later this year I'm going out with Louis
Black and John Bowman. I'm a good friend of Louis' and will help
him write a Comedy Central special he has coming up. Then I'm playing the
Funnybone Club in St. Louis in September. A good friend of mine owns it, so
I'll do a show for a week there. She doesn't care if I do good or not, she
just wants to see me sweat."
"Mainly, I love promotions," concludes Dan. "I
ran a radio station in Kansas for two years and Texas for three years and
learned to love taking an idea and bringing it to fruition. I love that more
than anything. I might have 100 ideas and only 20 of them that hit, but as
long as you try something you will come out ahead."
"Another key to success is being able to listen
to the people that work with you. If you give them a chance to give you ideas,
you'll get some good ones."
"And you never know what idea will hit, or even
if they'll hit at all," laughs Dan. "For example, we put on this huge thousand
dollar bikini contest in the summer. The bar was packed, but not one person
signed up for the contest. I swear to God, if I advertised 'Free Food Friday
Night' maybe the restaurant would be half filled. You never know. It's a
strange town to come up with the right idea for because there is so much
diversity."
If you've been living under a rock and have yet
to experience the multi-faceted array of offerings available at Shooters of
Saginaw, 8845 Gratiot in Shields, make it a point to discover any
of 100 reasons why Shooters was selected among the Top 100 Clubs &
Restaurants in the United States.
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