Weststone Lending explains bar business loans for Elyria, Ohio owners: loans for a bar and restaurant, bar equipment from coolers to draft systems, brewery equipment for a taproom, Lorain County, OH drinking place counts, remodeling, liquor permits in a funding request, a worked equipment example and card-sale advances. Figures come from County Business Patterns 2023.
Loan for a Bar and Restaurant in Lorain County, OH
A bar that serves food has two sets of equipment and two kinds of stock: a kitchen and a back bar, food and liquor. Funding follows the same split. Kitchen and bar equipment fit equipment financing; bar stock fits inventory financing or a line; a remodel fits a term loan.
The restaurant page covers kitchens, catering and partner buyouts in more detail.
Splitting liquor and food sales in the point-of-sale reports helps any request. Liquor and beer carry different costs from food, and a partner can read each line's margin only when the two are reported apart. A bar that cannot show the split will find its request read on total sales alone.
Bar Equipment Financing: Coolers, Draft Systems and Ice Machines
- Walk-in and reach-in coolers, back-bar refrigerators and keg coolers.
- Draft systems: towers, lines, glycol chillers and couplers.
- Ice machines and glass washers.
- POS hardware and sound systems.
- Furniture and the bar itself, if it is built as a unit.
Each comes with a quote and a resale market a partner can read. Installation of lines and chillers is a soft cost the partner may or may not include.
Brewery Equipment Financing for a Taproom
A taproom or brewpub adds brewing equipment: a brewhouse, fermenters, brite tanks, a glycol system and a canning or kegging line. Those are specialized machines with their own resale market. Partners finance them as equipment, reading the quote and the brewery's production and sales.
Drinking Places in Lorain County, OH: The 2023 Count
Lorain County, OH had 31 drinking places (alcoholic beverages) with employees in 2023 (NAICS 7224), with 225 employees and $5.2 million in payroll (County Business Patterns 2023). Bars running with fewer than five employees accounted for 15, or 48.4%, and 14 drinking places had a ZIP 44035 address (ZIP Code Business Patterns 2023). Nonemployer Statistics separately counted 25 without paid employees in 2024 (Nonemployer Statistics 2024).
Bars that mainly serve food are counted as restaurants, not drinking places, in these tables; the county had 160 full-service restaurants (County Business Patterns 2023).
Remodeling a Bar Room
A bar room remodel can cover flooring, the bar top, lighting, restrooms, seating, a patio and the exterior. Improvements to a leased building stay with the building, so the lease term limits how long a partner may finance them.
A partner reads sales history and the plan for the remodeled room: more seats, a kitchen addition, events. A remodel that adds capacity reads differently from one that refreshes the same room.
Plan the work around trading. A bar that closes for a month to remodel loses a month of sales while rent and loan payments continue, so the request should cover that gap as well as the contractor's bid. Phasing the work, room by room or after hours, can keep revenue coming in during construction.
Liquor Permits and a Funding Request
A bar's liquor permit is part of its value. A partner financing a bar may ask which permits the business holds, whether they are current and, for a purchase, whether they transfer with the sale. Permits for alcohol sales are issued under state rules.
Illustration: A Draft System and a Walk-In Cooler
Illustration only, invented figures: a bar installs a draft system for $14,500 and a walk-in cooler for $19,000, $33,500 in all. Financed at an invented annual rate of 10.5% over 48 months, the payment is about $858 a month (our arithmetic).
Draft sales margins, compared with bottled or canned sales, can be set against that payment. A new walk-in also cuts deliveries and spoilage, which shows up as lower costs rather than higher sales; both belong in the case for the purchase.
Card Sales and Cash Advances for Bars
A bar taking card payments may be offered a merchant cash advance. It buys a share of future card receipts and is not a loan. Compare the total to be collected with an equipment loan's or term loan's total payments first.
Records a Partner Reads From a Bar
- POS sales reports, including liquor and food separately.
- Business bank statements and tax returns.
- Equipment quotes and contractor bids.
- The lease.
- Permits held.
- Distributor invoices, which show what the bar buys and how often.
- Any existing equipment leases, such as a leased ice machine or draft system.
The Elyria, OH page sets out county figures.
By Weststone Lending · Updated
