We had the good fortune of connecting with Jimmy Nigg and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jimmy, why did you pursue a creative career?
I started my career in hospitality at a very young age. Waiting tables, cooking, bartending and eventually I got my first job in management when I was 22. I moved up very quickly in the nightclub business and was in charge of over 100 employees. There were nights were we had 10’s of thousands of patrons. It was intense, it was high energy and it was exciting. When I was in high school , I was the party guy. I would carry around my huge CD case so I could DJ, the hookup on a buyer for the keg and directions to the weekend house parties. I’m old enough to say that I used to leave directions on my pager greeting so my friends and the girls from school could call it and meet us there. We didn’t have cell phones in the 90’s! Loving to host parties and entertain ultimately transitioned into what I started my career doing, but it was a job I took opening a live music venue in Denver that changed my life forever. I was asked to start booking bands, and it was a night where I was sitting at the bar watching the band I had put on the calendar perform that It clicked. I could get paid to listed to live music for a living, and that’s what I wanted to do with my life. When I turned 31 I opened a music venue, restaurant and bar in Arvada, but this time I opened it as the owner.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
When I opened my first business in 2011, I thought my management experience would carry me into the ownership role. That was completely false! Owning a business is way more responsibility than managing a business, and the biggest difference is this:

It’s your money

When I was in management I would worry about my job, I would worry about the business, but It never really effected my paycheck. When you own a business, there are consequences and results for every single decision you make. There’s no one to blame but yourself if things don’t work out and you don’t have enough time to dwell over your mistakes, you have to roll with the punches. When we first opened we had run out of money due to the cost of the buildout and construction, so I had to take the tip money I made as a bartender straight to the bank every morning to cover the checks I had written for liquor, food and beer. I didn’t have enough money to pay myself, so I was working 6 days a week, open to close to keep my head above water. The bar business affords you some luxuries that other businesses do not, and the major one is being able to earn tips to use as your income. Those tips helped me during the slow months and I the months where there wasn’t enough in the account to use to pay my bills at home. Starting a business with little money or no money is exhausting, and I’ve had to struggle and work really hard each and every time I was put into that situation because I never had money and I didn;’t come from money. It cost us 50k to open our first bar, $125k to open our second bar and $375k to open the third bar. The bigger the space, the bigger the price tag. The bigger the build out, the longer it takes to get the doors open and in that scenario you are typically paying full rent with zero revenue generated, so it’s easy to get in a hole.

Dealing with employees was another challenge. You never want to have someone quit on you or have to fire someone, but the bar business is a revolving door. You’ll meet some really great people and you’ll meet some really horrible people too. I’ve always been the type of owner that loaned my employees money or gave them advances if they needed it. Some of the people I was nicest too, burned me the hardest. Either by not showing up for work, quitting with no notice, stealing or coming to work high or drunk. I’d always give people multiple chances, and it never worked out. The really great employees always seem to move on to another career, or move to another state. If you find good people, you have to take care of them because they are rare in this bar & restaurant industry.

All of my experience, miscues, successes, challenges and failures led me to where I am today and today I own a successful business called The Monkey Barrel. The Monkey Barrel first opened on Platt St. in the Lohi neighborhood in 2013. I found an incredible location that was formerly a bike shop called Salvagetti’s, and the concept was a tiny punk rock rock bar with 20 Exclusively-Colorado Craft Beers on tap with live music. I had a mural of Sid vicious painted on the wall, and built a back patio over the gravel parking lot. When we opened, I was the only bartender open to close and business was really slow. It took a long time before I was able to hire another bartender, but things started really picking up during the summer and we got really busy. Right around this time I got a call from my landlord and he informed me the building had been sold to a developer and that I would be forced to close. I found a location not far up the road in the Sunnyside neighborhood, and this location had a lot of potential but was running as a deli / market, so I essentially had to start over and do another build out to convert it to a bar. We had a bigger space this time, and also a kitchen ( which I wanted nothing to do with), so a small punk rock bar grew into more of a Gen-X theme and the mural of sid vicious was replaced by a mural of The Beastie Boys. We had nintendo 64’s hooked up to every booth with Mario Kart and 4 controllers ready to go, and the bigger space meant room for full bands. We partnered with different vendors to run our kitchen and just when things started really cranking, the pandemic happened. The pandemic almost put us under, and if not for a grant called “Save our Stages” that was designed to help independent music venues stay in business, we would have been gone.

Prior to receiving the grant, we had to find a way to sell food or we would not be allowed to open. During this time Denver had allowed us to convert our parking lot into a patio for outdoor seating because patrons were not allowed to dine indoors, but the stipulation was that we could not sell booze without being a full-service restaurant. I used the last of the money I had to buy all new kitchen equipment and began trying out burger recipes from the kitchen. I created a burger that was combination of my two favorite burger restaurants ( Buds Burgers and In-and-Out Burger) and we reopened with no employees. I was the cook, my wife was the bartender and our children did their online schooling in the same booths as the Nintendo 64’s. We didn’t know if it was going to work, but people started coming back in for the burgers and bringing people with them. When we were finally allowed to open our doors to indoor dining at 25%, we started filling up very quickly and then we were able to hire some of our employees back. When the pandemic was over, we started getting really busy, really fast. The new patio was packed, there was a line out the door for burgers and beer, we had bands back and added a Pinball arcade. We went from having a few signed guitars to walls filled with autographed memorabilia, we went from doing 15k a month during Covid to doing 15k days. The Monkey Barrel continues to break records month over month and year after year since 2021.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Right now I would definitely say Meow Wolf would be a stop. Casa Bonita if I could get a goddamn reservation. Beau Jo’s in Idaho Springs just to get a little preview of the mountains without getting stuck in traffic. Then for sure a local music venue or dive bar, but that’s just my style.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Absolutely would not be here without the support of my wife Cindy. She’s not only mother to our four children, but the glue that kinda keeps things together when I get burned out or overwhelmed. My parents and brother all contributed to the success of my first venture and we all still work in the businesses to this day

Website: www.monkeybarrelbar.com

Instagram: @monkeybarrelbar

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmy-nigg-b008192b/

Facebook: @monkeybarrelbar

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