>> True, but at John's Pizza we'd have an entire room to ourselves,
with tables/chairs for 30+ people, a closed door to isolate us
from the rest of the restaurant, and Chris (the owner) will turn off
the music in that one room, so it will be plenty quiet. I haven't
seen the back room of Baxters. Same deal? Better? Worse? <<
There is a doorway but no door to the back room, however if we move up to the far end it should be fairly quiet. The room certainly accommodates 30-40. We need to find out how busy they are between 7:00 and 9:00.
>> Also, I've know Chris for 20 years. He will work with us, chipping
in some money, or giving us a deal in some form, especially since
I may be able to steer some other small user groups to him.
He's willing to consider options like:
- Chipping in $20/month towards the projector for the next few
monthly meetings, subtracting it from our food bill, if the bill is
$200 or more.
- If we're going to eat/spend less than $200 per meeting, he
probably won't chip in, but he'll reserve the room for us every
month. He'll expect us to eat/spend at least $100 total per
meeting, and will round our bill up to $100 if needed to
justify turning away other business.
- If we don't want to eat/spend even $100 for food/drinks, he'll
rent us the room for $200/meeting, like he does with other
groups that rent it but don't order food at all. <<
We would have to check, but assuming Monday is a quiet night I suspect they would let us use the back room if we purchased food. They also have reasonably large screen TVs elsewhere so they might be willing to set one up in that room too.
>> - John's Pizza is BYOB, so we can bring in our own beer/drinks
if we like and save costs. (However, we should buy our non-
alcoholic drinks from the restaurant.) So that will reduce our
costs. <<
Now that could be a deal breaker. :)
I would add that it has been my experience that if you have a meeting for a group, say in a private home, maybe 10 people will show up. Move it to a public place like a restaurant and 40 people show up. Not sure how an office figures in, but it would be interesting to see if more people come out if it is held in that type of venue.
Regards,
Eric