“These people are going to be bringing business to me…”
You’ve likely seen the 16-seat Dutch style bikes moving between bars as a rolling pub crawl in downtown St. Pete. In this episode of Hustleburg, Brett talks with Pedal Pub St. Pete‘s Eric Olson to learn about how the pedal-powered transport came to be a fixture downtown.
Eric and Brett discuss how he “fell into” the business, the process for having the bikes made, and how the tour between bars and pubs materialized in St. Pete.
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Interview Transcription by Otter.ai
Brett Bittner
So these Dutch style bikes that are a mobile bar, why is that what it is you do?
Eric Olson
It’s kind of dumb luck. Okay, actually, it started in back in February 2006. I got an email from a fellow homebrewer lived in Minneapolis and part of the Minnesota home Brewers Association he saw one in Belgium actually took a picture of it. And it was more of a joke email, you know, hahaha would this be fun? As a club vehicle for events, parades, things like that, why song is the thing? That’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. All right, zoomed in, I could barely make up a name. Yes cafe, did a Google search for that and found this Dutch website, the kind of website where you press a button and that translates and it’s kind of packed that you can figure it out what they’re saying, sure, like, but I could figure out their email address. So I clicked on that send an email said, Hey, would you guys like to give us directions on how to build one? The homebrewers Club might want to put one together for events and parades. And they write back No, no, we’re not gonna do that. Okay, so how much would one cost if one were to buy one said well never shipped one to the US before, but including shipping to be about $40,000 Whoa, well, my cheap Best Buddies in the beer club now. Look, it’s just in beer club. You try to make the best beer for the lowest cost, right? So that’s just part of the fun of it. Well, they’re not about to kick out that much money for a parade vehicle. But I was a business professor. At the time at normandale Community College and, and I’ve been in business for myself, you know. So it’s not that I didn’t think it would be that difficult. So I started reading together a kind of a proposal, kind of a business plan, some pro formas, it was difficult to do, because there’s no historical data to go off of. And if you start a pizza place, you can find historical data. This is how much you should be paying for sauce. This is so much lower labor that how much rent, your market size should be this big, that kind of thing had none of that because nobody had ever done it before in the United States. And but I started putting some numbers together, got a hold of a couple of guys that I thought might be good business partners. And one of them said, you know, let’s go to Amsterdam and go meet those guys. So I flew to Amsterdam, and while we were there we met here and Hank Fennell are their brothers is here as a truck driver. Hank was a welder. Their dad was a welder, just blue collar guys. And they dreamed this thing up on the back of a bar napkin in Amsterdam. Wow. Yeah. And the bar owner saw what they were drawing and said, Hey, you know if you get that, ready for The Queen’s Day Parade, which evidently is like the hugest thing in Amsterdam. Okay, I’ll pay for the parts. And that’s how they had to develop the first one, four or five years prior to us stopping there. While we were there. They said, Would you like to be a US distributor? Well, that’s what we wanted to do. So it took about six months to work out the international distribution agreement, because even though we have the kind of the same common law base, there’s a little different than ours. And you know, what governing law are you going to use if there’s a dispute, things like that? We got the first one delivered in March of 2007, in Minneapolis, and opening day, the first of these in the country, actually, on April Fool’s Day 2007. Did all the tours me and my business partner for that first year, and the next year, we had to hire somebody to do some of the tours. Then we started, people started noticing us across the country and we just so we’re operating a distributorship. Okay, nationwide distributorship, as well as retail operation and in Minneapolis and Things started going really well, Minneapolis and more people started asking us about, you know, how do I start this business? So we wrote up a nice business manual. And we sold that along with the bikes. And we ended up doing that selling those these bikes into 38 markets across the country sold over 150 units. I sold out of that business two years ago. Okay, and now I’ve got this pedal pub, I got pedal pumps and P offices. So that’s the that’s the story.
Brett Bittner
So who is it that’s wanting to get? What is it? 123 12 to 15 other friends to bike around?
Eric Olson
It’s mostly birthday parties, okay, bachelorette parties, and just friends on the town. Okay, I break it down when people are are checking out and they’re about to pass. That’s one of the required questions. Okay. Yeah. A little over almost 70% fall into one of those three categories. Wow. And there’s other ones too and that, you know, it might fall into, like a charity event or corporate out I guess that would be fourth out of the out of the West we do a lot of businesses where they’ll they’ll rent out two, maybe even all three of the bikes because I can put 48 people on board. Okay, bikes, each bike called 16. And then we got to be careful where we pick where we’re going to go because there’s some places we would overwhelm with 40 people, but we do that all the time. We got the Chamber of Commerce ambassadors coming on next Thursday, their rent to bikes, and it’s just a hell of a lot of fun. Yeah.
Brett Bittner
So do you have like a predetermined route? Or is it just kind of the places that they want to hit in a bike like Pub Crawl? It depends on private tours. Yeah,
Eric Olson
if you rent it, I say you Brittany’s wherever you want to go, as long as it’s back in two hours because that’s the time limit. I don’t really care. Usually on private tours, they got one ideas like we really want to stop at first, or really want to stop at avid or wherever someplace in this area. on public tours where people rent by the seat. We pick the stops. Okay? Because we can’t have people trying to you know, we got a bachelor party of six in the town of four and their time, well, where do we go? And now I’m public tours, which are about half of our tours, we set exactly where we’re going to stop. Okay? Actually, my drivers do that at the time of the tour.
Brett Bittner
So today, your businesses where it is, where do you want to be taking it? And what is it that you’re doing to get it there?
Eric Olson
Well, as this business has been here for we started in, I started in 2012. So it’s, this is our beginning of our eighth year, okay. And what I want to do is maintain stability and sales because what happens and has happened has happened across the country in all these all the other markets, all 38 markets is about your six or seven, is that when that’s when sales start to come down a little bit in that plateau, because all locals have done it. Okay, you know, three or four times some of them right and in a lot of places you don’t have any kind of tourist business going on. Sure. So I’m not looking to grow beyond these three bikes because I don’t there there isn’t gonna be that much demand for it I can’t stir up or create more demand for it. So yeah, that’s where we’re gonna keep the three bikes full. And and kind of stave off that seven year. Yeah, it’s fine or plateau, kind of inevitable. The cool new thing first few years are real struggling right just about when under a cup in first few years almost seems to keep on tossing money at something saying well, maybe we can get it to work. Okay, right. It’s good. Can you do with a used car? Well, I fixed transmission but now the engines going on. Right? You know, the sunk costs situation. So the first several years, three years make any money then it starts taking off pretty good, and now it’s flat towing, but we’re plateauing at a good level.
Brett Bittner
So what are some of the things that you’re doing to try to make sure that you’ve got butts in the seats for all three bikes as much as you can possibly tour?
Eric Olson
i’ve tried a lot of different thing, okay, I tried. I mean, nothing against creative loafing but I put an ad in there that was a complete waste, okay? Something called my area network, which was supposed to get in touch with people in the area. That was a waste of money, crunch fitness, sign up with them, did some marketing through them, that didn’t do anything. Okay, the only place to spend your money now is Facebook. Now next year, I might give you a completely different answer. Okay. But right now that’s where it’s at.
Brett Bittner
Well, you’re speaking my language, you know, I actually have something coming out all the will have come out by the time this airs, but it’s talking about the single most important platform for any small business. And it’s Facebook because that is where the people are. Yep. But I’m looking forward in where we can get some underpriced attention and some of the things that we can be doing from in a digital marketing space. I’m looking at like the swipe up ads on Instagram as a possibility. And one thing that’s really cool is the viral nature. of tic Tock if you’re not if you’re familiar with that video,
Eric Olson
no,
Brett Bittner
that one’s 15 to 60 second videos. But the cool thing about it is you don’t have to have a following. You don’t have to build anything. Because of the way the app is designed to give you the for you page where it serves videos that it thinks you will like. And you don’t have to follow that page. You don’t have to follow that account. So you have the opportunity to go viral from literally nothing from your very first post. So there’s some really cool new kind of underpriced attention things.
Eric Olson
Well, you know, Facebook has it right now. Yeah, just that’s where all the people that are where it’s at. And I will guarantee in five years, that’s not going to be the correct
Brett Bittner
Oh, absolutely! Now, you know, people are going to catch up to the, you know, they’re going to figure out that it’s priced right. And it’s going to be too expensive for a lot of small businesses and they’re going to have moved on. So is there anything that you’re reading, watching or listening to, to help you grow or stave off the plateau?
Eric Olson
No. Okay, I used to read a lot of textbooks, business textbooks, I taught business classes for 15 years. And right now, I’ve watched some videos on how to do your own Facebook marketing, right type of thing. But not not a whole heck of a lot of that. Okay. You know what I do to kind of keep abreast of what’s going on in town. I love St. Louis and St. Pete is really the coolest damn town. Absolutely. And, you know, I go to things like entrepreneur, social club, great people there. There’s another one called ruin a business where, you know, network and drink beer, which is totally that’s right up your alley. Right, you know, and I keep abreast of what’s going on in town. I, I talk to the local business owners here and you know, say NC Hey, who’s moving in? There’s a whiskey distillery that’s going to be moving in down the street here. So I, I stopped there, American Freedom distillery. And I think the girl’s name was Melinda. And it doesn’t matter what her name was, but that’s good. That’s huge. Gonna be Huge, I met a gal that’s working for the, you know, the State Theatre at six seventh and central and but they cleaned it all up and that’s gonna be really nice event space, they’re gonna be remodeling. they’re gonna be hopefully opening in April. Okay, that’s the that’s the goal that’s gutted and they’re working on the insides now. But that’s, that’s going to be popping open soon. And I just keep abreast of things by just being out talking to other business owners and other people around town.
Brett Bittner
So when you aren’t working on pedal pub, and when you aren’t giving tours, where can we find you doing? What in the St. Pete area?
Eric Olson
You could find me at the gym? Okay, and don’t try to go to the gym every day. Sure. You will find me. Well, it’s it’s kind of a weird blend my life because I don’t I don’t think of it as work but I do go to all these local places and bars and restaurants and make sure okay, is this going to be an appropriate stop for my tours? Who are the people that work here? You know, are they nice folks that type of thing? And other than that, you see me? Well, yeah, you probably see me around town a lot. Now think about it.
Brett Bittner
Okay, what is one of your favorite completely unrelated to work activities to do around here?
Eric Olson
unrelated to work activities to do around here? Yeah, festivals. There’s there’s some live music plan, though see the black honkies of those guys. You know, I’ve been to Janice live a couple of times. I think that’s a great venue. Okay. I’ll go over here real close to three daughters, and they’ve got a venue there. And that’s it’s kind of unrelated. It is unrelated to work, but I still I still have always I ended up for Okay, should we stop here? How is the surface? What are the prices like, um, you know, what I, I pretty much never stopped thinking about business. Okay.
Brett Bittner
So how much of your time would you say that you’re working on your business in those kind of activities versus in your business, actually doing tours and doing the day to day operations.
Eric Olson
I don’t do tours anymore. I’ll fill in. I want my people, my employees to do the tours, I certainly swoop in and take one thing I want to do that tour owner that not going to do that. So I’ll fill in on tours, as far as the day to day stuff, you know, I’ve had to make a bunch of copies of some biking tour logs that I’ve just brought down here, working on workers comp, odd and all that fun stuff that goes on behind the scenes. Yeah, employees and nobody here thinks about riding the ride in the bike. So I you know, that’s what I do working whether that you consider honor in I don’t know. But that’s what my days are spent doing is figuring that kind of stuff out.
Brett Bittner
So you said this is the eighth year that you’ve been in business here in St. Louis. Is that about the time that you transitioned from Minneapolis or was there some time where you weren’t pedal pub? In St. Pete, but you were already here?
Eric Olson
was starting to move with you. And that was a very kind of a strange start. There was a gal named Krista who had sent an email to me and my business partner who has since bought out and said, Hey, I’m moving to St. Pete, my husband’s being transferred down here. I think that this pedal pump thing would work down there. Well, that time we’re going okay, fine. We’ll sell you a bike in the businessman a well, we didn’t want to open up any kind of satellite operation. She was very persistent. So we said, well tell you what, if you can get it approved by the city. We’ll send a couple bikes down there for a season to see if it works. And it did. She initially we started efforts, she was showing the the information to to mark Ferguson for and he just said, Okay, I get it. He’s very smart guy, good businessman. And he just said, Okay, fine. I’m gonna clear on a space in the back. You guys will start near tours right there. Because he can figure it out like that. That okay? These people are going to be bringing business to me three or two people. You know With multiple bikes or falls, he did that real quick. So that’s where that’s where we started out. And I had, you know, I came down here and met with her and saw St. Pete and St. Pete was pretty nice. Yeah, at the time. And it wasn’t until about three. I mean, it was here a lot. But it wasn’t till about three years ago that I bought a condo. And I’ve been living there full time for the last year and a half so far. Because turns out that dumb luck, and an email from a gal named Krista and I found a place that I really love. That’s awesome. St. Pete’s fantastic, man.
Brett Bittner
Very cool. What events do you have coming in the second half of 2020 that we know that you’re going to be a part of where people can find out more about you or they’re going to kind of see you guys around town or that they you know, you’re going to be a part of None? None. Sorry. That’s okay. Hey, man. Lots of times. It’s just about the business that you got going on. I wasn’t sure if there was anything In the area that that you guys might show up to, yeah.
Eric Olson
Nothing planned right now. Okay.
Brett Bittner
So where can people find out more about pedal pub, St. Pete website, Facebook, Instagram, all the social media stuff.
Eric Olson
The best places is our website PedalPubStPete.com And same thing abbreviated. Of course. The stuff that I put on on Facebook is just generally fun local funding local stuff. Yeah, I just, you know, I put up stuff on there because it’s funny, and it usually has to do with the weather because what the weather or beer does, that’s we have to deal with. If it’s a thunderstorm, right, go out. Okay. Absolutely. You know, you’re not gonna get hit by lightning and resting in. It’s not anything to worry about. But yeah, we got thunderstorms. Okay. Yeah, I mean, look, if we can’t dress for our weather, who can write we got ponchos if you get wet. You know, there’s a certain time of year round here Where? Yeah, it’s gonna rain pretty much every day. But you’ll see us out on the street On CENTRAL AVENUE. range goes from about 50 to about 31st. Okay, about four or 548 on East and punk east on the west. We stay cut pretty tight within that but, you know, around Central Avenue, Grand Central District, a little bit into the edge district as well.
Brett Bittner
Very cool. Eric, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with Hustleburg and I can’t wait to see what’s next. Alright.
Eric Olson
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.