Consistency (Lack of It Makes You Shit)

Let’s not bullshit each other. You can have the best music, the best staff, the best drinks this side of a Brooklyn speakeasy - but if someone walks into your place and the lights are off, the DJ’s playing dubstep when they expected disco, and the pint tastes like carbonated failure, they’re gone.

Worse: they’ll tell their mates. Loudly. Probably online. Probably forever.

This business - this gloriously messy, soul-eating, beautiful disaster of an industry - runs on trust. And nothing erodes trust faster than inconsistency.

We’re not talking about flashy rebrands or hashtags that trend for five minutes. We’re talking about showing the fuck up when you say you will, delivering the thing you said you’d deliver, and not throwing your customers into some random choose-your-own-adventure every time they walk through the door.

You Can’t Market Your Way Out of a Shit Experience

You can’t plaster over bad nights with pretty posters. You can’t slap a reel on your feed and expect it to erase the fact that your doors were locked at 10pm when they were supposed to be open till 1.

Ask yourself:

Did we open on time, or did someone wander in hungover at 11:06 and pretend the shutters stuck?

Did the music match what we promised, or did some bedroom DJ hijack the night and decide it was time for a 20-minute grime remix no one asked for?

Did the food come out hot, or did it look like a GCSE catering exam gone wrong?

Were the drink deals actually running, or did we quietly forget to brief the team?

And did the sound system sound like a party - or a speakerphone in a tin bucket?

Because if any of that’s off, your marketing isn’t building your business - it’s setting a trap.

All those posts, all those flyers, all that hype… and you just used it to lure someone into a let-down. Well done. You’ve now got yourself a walking, talking bad review with a phone full of group chats.

You Built a Brand? Great. Now Stop Thinking You’re Clever and Prove It. Every Single Time.

Branding is what you say you are. Consistency is what you actually are.

And trust me - they know the difference.

You think you’ve posted the same message too many times? You haven’t. You think that same photo from the same corner of the venue has gone stale? It hasn’t. The people who care are just starting to notice. The people who don’t yet? They weren’t even paying attention the first ten times.

You might be sick of saying it, but that’s when it’s finally working.

But none of it means shit if someone gets there and the place feels off. Cold. Disorganised. Tired. Like no one cared. Like someone pulled the plug and forgot to tell the rest of the team.

You have to earn your vibe. And then you have to defend it - shift after shift, week after week - like it’s the only thing standing between you and the abyss.

“Open from 10” Means Open at 10. Not 10:15. Not “Whenever.”

Here’s where we really lose people.

You tell them you’re open. They believe you. They get dressed. They make plans. They walk halfway across town, maybe even tell their friends. And when they get there? Locked doors. Dark windows. No explanation.

That’s not just disappointment. That’s betrayal. And people don’t forget betrayal - they write about it in reviews and shout it over the smoking area fence to strangers.

Don’t be the venue that lies about when it’s open. Don’t be the place they stop trusting. Because once that trust’s gone, so are they.

Who Are You Actually For?

You can’t serve everyone. So stop trying. That path leads straight to being bland, confused, and empty by midnight.

Are you the all-night dive full of chaos and cheap shots? Own it.

Are you the mood-lit cocktail cave with vinyl on the walls and bartenders who know how to stir instead of shake? Good. Double down.

Are you the casual local with proper pints and good chips? Brilliant. Don’t suddenly start doing mezcal tastings on Tuesdays because some bloke with a lanyard said it was “what the market wants.”

Look at your regulars. Watch the room. See who’s staying. That’s your crowd. Speak their language and quit trying to translate yourself into something you’re not.

If your space doesn’t make sense to them, it won’t make sense to anyone.

Trends Are Fine. But Panic is Embarrassing.

There’s a difference between responding to culture and chasing it down the street with your pants around your ankles.

Sure, stay sharp. Keep an eye out. Try things. But don’t flinch every time some influencer posts a video about turmeric margaritas. If you rip up your menu every week, change your look every time you see a new font, or launch a new “concept” every time you see a slump in sales, what you’re really telling people is: “We don’t know who we are.”

People don’t want novelty. They want identity.

You’re allowed to change. You’re allowed to adapt. But do it with intention. Not because you saw someone else doing it better on Instagram.

Consistency Doesn’t Have to Be Boring. Just Unmistakable.

The best places in the world aren’t always the flashiest. They’re just the ones that make you feel something - every time.

You don’t need a fancy logo. You need a logo that always looks like it belongs. You don’t need million-pound photography. You need photos that all feel like they came from the same world, same vibe, same person.

You don’t need to be cutting edge. You just need to show up the same way, over and over, until people trust you without thinking.

Until they say: “Let’s just go there.”

That’s the gold standard.

So What Do You Actually Do?

You stop overthinking it.

You don’t hire a branding agency to find your soul. You don’t keep redesigning the poster because your graphic designer got a new Adobe plug-in.

You show up. Every shift. You deliver what you said you would. You play the music you promised. You open when you say you’re open. You don’t switch things up mid-week because someone got bored.

You don’t get to be interesting until you’re consistent.

You don’t get loyalty until you’ve earned reliability.

And if you think that sounds boring - maybe this isn’t your business.

Because consistency is the backbone of the whole thing. It’s the reason someone walks in expecting a good time - and gets one. It’s why they come back. Why they bring their mates. Why they tell people about it like it’s a secret they want to share.

You don’t get that from a single good night.

You get that by doing it again.

And again.

And again.

Want to build something people remember?

Don’t just do it well.

Do it well until it becomes gospel.

Because if you don’t, someone else will - and they’ll do it better than you. Because they’ll be consistent.