Too many bar owners built a bar for themselves... when they should have built what their market and demographic demands!

In the bar and restaurant industry, you're always one idea away from your next quarter-million.

In the worst of our recession, bars were making money. Every bar can make money. If they're failing, it's not because of the president or Congress or Ukraine. It's because of them. And if you own failure, then you'll own success.

I think the greatest mistakes have been my greatest lessons.

If I'm your boss, and I truly want you to be successful... I'm inherently going to teach you. I'm inherently going to correct your mistakes. I'm inherently going to spend time with you. I'm inherently going to lead you.

Putting somebody else in crisis mode and causing them to make quicker decisions, urgent decisions, rather than prolonged, more logical decisions can be very advantageous. So, to be successful in business, you have to understand the power of confrontation and how to use it correctly.

On 'Bar Rescue,' failure is not an option. I have to try to turn the business around.

People see themselves on camera. They're ashamed of the things that they do, so they have a choice: Either they accept responsibility for it, or they blame the show for it. It's a human reaction.

You can tell within a second of entering a bar if it's a place you should spend your time.

My company was based in Palm Beach, Florida, but when 'Bar Rescue' took off, I knew I had to move west. It was a choice between L.A. and Vegas. I have a lot of friends in Vegas, and it became my choice. I'm so glad because I love it here. There's a real sense of community. It's a big town that feels like a small town. Everybody knows everybody.

The Knack were a very, very powerful band, and you got to understand, when they came in, all the punk stuff was still going on. There was an amazing conflict within the scenes.

The infusion of technology and social marketing to bar spaces is a big opportunity.

I've traveled the world, and as an America,n I get insulted when people say American businesses aren't respected overseas. Look at how our food and beverage companies do around the world. We are regarded as the best at this. A lot of what we do here is exportable, and I don't think there's anybody that does it better in the whole world.

If you can't build a relationship with your customers, you're in big trouble. If you can remember the numbers from the reports and spreadsheets you spent hours poring over in your office, but you can't picture the faces of your customers - you're in big trouble.

Honestly, if I could be anything, I'd love to be a small-business authority type of person.

I've always said that my greatest crises are my greatest opportunities to prove my own character to myself.

I really was going to run for Congress.

Revenue cures everything in the business world.

The fact of the matter is that the most important responsibility a bar owner has is public safety and the safety of the people in it.

Bars can't be everything to everyone. They must be everything to someone.

I believe that a cook in a kitchen isn't producing an entree: he's producing a reaction. The product is the reaction; the entree is just the vehicle.

I'm a businessman, not a bartender.

The gift of giving and paying it forward has always been traits I consider to be invaluable.

Bar owners tend to be social rather than operators. Most bar owners do not manage their numbers. They do not have spreadsheets or reports to manage their budget, cost, or inventory. I would say 90% of independent bar owners do not even have a budget.

When my company does a good job, we make people happy. They laugh, they smile, they have a good time - that's what we do for a living. Any business doing that is making a noble effort.

People connect to a good bar very personally.

Keeping a bar clean is basic in this business. Having a staff that speaks adequate English is basic.

In my extensive experience, I can honestly say that Sculpture Hospitality's inventory solutions are world class and, by far, the most comprehensive in the industry.

One of my first bartending gigs was on Santa Monica Boulevard at Doug Weston's Troubadour, a very famous live music venue.

Failure is an extremely personal thing, and so is success. The problem with people is they don't own their failure, and if you don't own your failures, you're never going to own your successes.

If you have to signal a bartender to get a drink, then they're not looking at you, which is their problem. They're not doing their job. So don't feel rude when you signal a bartender. They're the ones who caused you to signal them. Go for it.

I'm the type of employer who will hire based on personality, based on potential. If you put the resume before the personality, you're going to fail.

You give me someone with the right personality, and I'll give you a bar manager in three weeks. You give me someone who has been a lousy bar manager for 30 years, and in three weeks, you'll still have a lousy bar manager.

It's easy to be good when things are great; it's tough to be good when they're not.

Don't eat the bar nuts.

I have a playroom with my drum set, a guitar, and amplifier at home.

Sometimes people go into my business because they like to drink, which - that's insane.

If I were to pick the life of someone whom I professionally mimic in many ways, it would be Howard Hughes, surprisingly.

Government employees make a good amount of money - income levels are very high in Washington, D.C. compared to other markets, so they are living in a bubble.

I was 12 years old and in summer camp. I started a company called Aardvark Industries, which provided basic services to camp counselors.

What I love about Vegas is that we have the mountains and the Strip. There is always something to do.

Never eat anything out of a bowl in a bar... If it isn't in a package, don't eat it.

I opened my first bar that I owned in 1989. The first one I ever owned was in downtown St. Louis.

When I went to college, I really became interested in cultural anthropology. Our behavior isn't that different from other primate species'.

I can't believe the sense of community here, the amount of pride the people who run this city have in Las Vegas. They are wonderful.

Rarely does a congressman stand up and defend a liquor company. Rarely does a congressman stand up and defend a bar.

The wrong personality with the greatest resume in a business will not grow that business.

I don't want to hire people who have less of a commitment than I do.

I could take a cemetery and make all the tombstones beer companies. There's a lot of craft beers that came and went. A lot of them.

Excuses destroy success every time.