Close-Up on NYC Bourbon Bar Idle Hands

Rob Morton, Owner of Idle Hands in New York, Talks About Running a Bourbon Bar

By Kurt Maitland

Idle Hands, in my opinion, is one of the best bourbon bars in all of NYC. I had the pleasure of interviewing Rob Morton, one of the co-owners of the bar and talking to him about both the current bar and the development of their sister bar, Fool’s Gold.

KM: The first question is what inspired you to move from the music industry to having a bar?

RM: The history of the bar and how we opened up – Marc Schapiro and myself had been best friends for 14 – 15 years. I had left the music industry and he was still in it. I was living in LA at the time and we were trying to find ways to work together. I was a production manager for videos and commercials. He and I had come up with multiple ideas for internet TV shows, marketing ideas, etc.

He had flown out to LA and we were on La Cienega Blvd heading to an investors’ meeting to pitch this idea, actually it was three ideas at once – two internet TV shows and one regular TV show. On the way up – I want to say it was me but I don’t remember who said it – we’re driving up and one of us said “At the end of the day all I want to do is open a bar”. And the other one said ‘Really? That’s all I want to do”. 

It wasn’t like “Hey, we’re going to open a bar” but more “let’s explore it” because neither of us get into things lightly. Let’s talk about it, let’s see if the numbers match. We looked into it and really thought about why we wanted to do it. We started crunching numbers and doing our due diligence and decided it could work and that it made more sense than all the other things we were looking to do. It was less depending on other people and more depending on ourselves. You have a spot, you put liquor in it, and it’s not like if you build it they will come – you have to make sure people are going to go. We are all from marketing, and we worked our asses off to market it. Before we opened up, we had somewhere around 1400 friends on Facebook, 1100 followers on Twitter – basically before we ever served a drink.

KM – and that’s more than enough to keep a bar running if you can keep them coming in….

RM – Don’t get me wrong. Even to this day, we are a basement bar on Avenue B. There are challenges that go with that and we pride ourselves on still being a music industry bar and catering to that clientele. On top of that we’ve added craft beer to one of the best bourbon selections in the city.

KM –It is. That’s what hit me the first time I went in there. It’s a better selection than hanging out in a fancy hotel bar.

RM – I pride myself on our selection. You walk into my bar, I have 90 – 110 Bourbons behind the bar and I will talk to you intelligently about all of them. And if you don’t know shit about bourbon, I’ll talk to you about it. We hated the pretensions that go with a bar. We hated “I know this about this bourbon and you don’t”. Who cares? At the end of the day, it’s about what you like and what you want to drink and doing it for a fair price.

KM – And that’s what you do. You don’t water down drinks …

RM – We also don’t surcharge for on the rocks or neat. There are bars in the city that do it and that concept to me is one of the disgusting practices ever. You are going to pay what you are going to pay. We differentiate between a shot and a dram, we do not differentiate between neat and on the rocks. You are getting two ounces with either one. Upcharging for ice is rude. We also don’t up charge for a mixer. So if you wanted a Maker’s and ginger, I’m not going to charge you another dollar, two dollars for that.

KM – It’s good customer service. Realistically what is that cost, a few cents? They are happy, will tip accordingly and hopefully tell their friends. Obviously it’s good for everybody.

RM – But I’m getting off track – We were talking about the opening of the bar. It started from that conversation and us crunching the numbers. Keep in mind that from idea to the day we got keys was two and ½ years. Two years of that was ideas, doing business plans, Skyping, chatting on AOL, two or three times a week.

KM – I don’t think you have done this bar in LA, could you?

RM – I don’t think that is true. We didn’t strive to be a basement bar.

KM – I mean that there is one advantage NYC has over LA – foot traffic and the fact that you don’t have to drive from this bar to that bar.

RM – I like to think that we have a bar that would work in every city. You come down – you can have classic cocktail, you can have very good bourbon from a great selection, or have a craft beer and that (bar) can fit anywhere. I could be in Cleveland or Northern Oklahoma. It’s a dive bar that isn’t a dive bar. You can come in and talk whiskey and do shots and have beer.

KM – That was my first reaction when came in. It’s a basement dive bar….but then it’s not because dive bars don’t have this selection of whiskey. This bar is well thought out, well laid out and not just trying to pour cheap well drinks down my throat. It has a whiskey menu that is several pages long and you pick what you like. If you want a recommendation, the bartender is happy to help you.

RM – I pride myself on knowing the whiskeys at my bar but I will never say I know more than my patrons. It’s all about learning.

KM – 1.)What you love about owning Idle Hands and 2.) What do feel you will do with your new space (Fool’s Gold – which is shooting for a late Fall/early Winter Grand Opening)?

RM – Two of my partners still work for other companies so I can only speak for me on this. This is my career now. I couldn’t GM a bar and then fly back to LA to shoot production. It went from making money for other people to making money for ourselves. That being said, you are also supplying something to the public. Without them, you are not making any money. We continue to strive for knowledge without pretension and to have fun with it. In the end, it was a point in my life where I could sit and do 10, 12, 14 hour days and make good money or I can work 10, 12, 14 hour days for me. I’ve taken a pay cut but the bar makes money and does well and I’ve never been happier in my life. It’s about the fun and the freedom and getting to be my own boss.

KM – So you are doing the new bar (Fool’s Gold). What will be the difference offering from one bar to another?

RM – The second spot will be same concept but I’m going to bare down the bourbon selection but I’m going to up the Scotch and Irish selection. For this one, I’m smarter now than I was three years ago. When I say that, I know more about whiskeys and I get to pare down one style of whiskey and expand the other and also have a good cocktail program. Not to compete with the PDTs of the world etc. but something that compliments what we do.