Squire: Flatness embracing amusement to fill seats
Squire owner Jeff Flatness has embraced the new amusement games, which is not surprising since he started out in the amusement and coffee vending business many years ago in Bozeman. He still owns and operates Rocky Mountain Gaming, a traditional video gambling machine route business. 
But he delved into location ownership just under two years ago, certainly understanding a gambling department should be a profit center, but also figuring there is still good money to be made in the bar business.
Flatness says the key is promotions and by that he doesn't mean big-time advertising campaigns. He uses virtually only in-house promotions and an outside reader marquee. Rather, he means working and promoting the business one customer at a time.
Flatness has been involved in the 8-ball pool leagues and the state tournament for 20 years. He ramroded the Bozeman league personally which, not coincidentally, was the largest of any of the city leagues in Montana with over 80 teams participating!
Yes, promotion.
"You can't be an absentee owner anymore," he says simply. "I'm either there or else my right hand, supervisor Michael Mattson, is there at all times, interfacing with the patrons, management and staff. We generate buzz by being here.
"We hire good staff and we demand that they smile! Get out front and manage your business. It's the simple stuff that's working. What I want is a bar that makes money."
Flatness installed 12 big flat-screen TVs and contracted for the NFL football package. He also focuses on NASCAR, college sports and baseball.
Flatness tells an interesting story: "I'm from Bozeman so I advertised on my (street-side) marquee for Bobcat fans to come in and cheer for the Cats during the Cat/Griz game. The place filled up with as many or more Griz fans who came in to razz the Cats fans!...all in good fun, of course. The place was absolutely packed."
Indeed, Flatness also tells of a highly successful chili cook-off conducted at the Squire. He shows us an album of wonderful pictures taken at a 50s-themed sock hop they ran. His Super Bowl party is, well, super, he says. "We do an event every month."
"A friend from Billings came in to see me and brought three of his friends. They had a good time and they told some others who in turn told others. Now we see
a lot of new people in here as
a result of that one customer visit."
Flatness isn't sitting on his hands wondering what will be the effects of the Oct. 1 smoking ban. Instead, he purchased a lot next door to accomodate customer parking while he converts the former parking space out back into an outdoor beer garden patio that will accomodate his smokers. He has plans to make it a comfortable, warm space year-round.
He says amusement devices are "an excellent tool for keeping people around longer. You've got to be creative; keep changing things around."
Flatness told the Tavern Times he had installed the Big Buck Hunter game just one week prior to our interview.
"It brought in a whole new crowd; new faces. They heard we had it," he relates.
When we stopped in at 10:30 on a Monday a.m., the Squire had a pretty good group of what appeared to be regulars, coffee drinkers mostly. But it was telling to see four fellows saunter to the Silver Strike bowling device and begin a spirited competition, which we could view on the overhead flatscreen televisions.
Flatness describes running his first Silver Strike tournament.
"It took about a week to organize and sign up players. Thirty-two signed up, 16 men and 16 women. We ran it as a blind draw so it wasn't spouses on the same team. We had the finals on a Saturday. All this was just 10 days, maybe a couple of weeks after we had the machine (he now has two of them).
"The tournament took seven hours. Meanwhile we had 45-50 folks in here just for the tournament. It generated a great beer day.
"You could run it over several days, have eliminations and shorten up the finals day. I think we'll try 16 teams of four players each next time; get it down to maybe five hours.
"Amusement games is a new business department" that has other benefits besides machine profits, Flatness says. "Our crowd is just more active; people are up and moving around. They are all interacting with reach other. It's just a more fun place."
Amusement Services President Tim Carson, who vends the games at the Squire, says, "The money has shifted. February was a great month for places that are well run."
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, April 2009, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W Granite, Suite 102, Butte MT. 59701