The Daily Kroak

Call me!

We ordered the "kroaky phone" intercom system today.

After you check-in at reception, one of our friendly waitstaff will take you to your room and will show you how to select songs with the remote control and how to apply slideshow themes to the room. At that time they also take your initial order for food and drink. To get the party going we suggest a pitcher of beer, some wine and some tasty treats from the kitchen. Singing is thirsty work...

When you are ready for some more refreshments you simply pick up the kroaky phone -- you'll be connected instantly to the waitstation where our staff will take your new order. A few minutes later your waiter discreetly enters the room with your order. To avoid interupting the singer, the waiter will not take a new order unless you specifically ask him or her to do so. If you need more supplies just holler down the kroaky phone for more, more, more! Repeat often for best results ;-)

Also, just before your reserved time is up you'll receive a freindly call on the kroaky phone from the receptionist asking you if you'd like to extend your stay. Usually our cusomers will book for an initial two hours, and extend for one or two hours more. Some people have been known to stay in the rooms all night riding the karaoke vibe. Stay as long as it's fun!

Video killed the radio star

Today (Wednesday) I went to the site to hand in some new plans. We had to decide where the projectors are going to be positioned in each room. Projectors? Well, instead of decorating each room with different themes we thought we'd allow our customers to customize each room by projecting different slideshow themes onto the walls. So if you like country music, you can set up a slide show that will show images to match the country theme -- Monument Valley, Tumbleweed, horses, Malboro men and so on. Or if you're feeling all smoochy the L-O-V-E slideshow will display romantic images. Kid's will love Spongebob, Dora, Transformers or Disney character parties too. We hope you'll enjoy it!

Our Google and Facebook promotion is working well. We now have 14 fans on our Facebook page and have already started receiving reservations for parties in September. Next week we'll be working on more promotion and PR into all the local magazines and newspapers.

Together in Electric Dreams

Today (Monday) we had some big meetings about the electrical work required in the building. It's incredible how much electrical work has to be done. We have to make sure there are wall sockets for all the karaoke equipment, the TV monitors, the lighting, room projectors, emergency lights, smoke detectors, sockets for vaccuum cleaners, kitchen appliances, security systems, air conditioning (all our rooms are individually air-conditioned), and there's probably more we haven't even thought of yet. Not only do we have to decide what we need, but exactly where it's going to go. We have to make sure that all of the sockets and cponnections are int he correct places -- it'll be difficult to change later.

We also ordered all the bench seats for all the rooms. Each room will have comfy bench seats around the walls - with buttons. They are being pre-built in Clearwater and will be shipped down to the site in about four weeks.

On the weekend we launched a new Flash-based website. We also started placing some ads on Google (more on this later). If you are reading this through an ad in Google - thank you for clicking! You can also become a fan of Kroaky's on Facebook.

Why do you build me up?

Busy, busy, busy...

It rained all day today. When we arrived at the "future home of Kroaky's" the construction workers were busy getting things done. The plumber was digging trenches for new pipes in the concrete floor with a jackhammer. We saw a man on stilts walking about. No, it wasn't the clown, but the framer -- they guy who puts up the frame for the walls. He had also marked out the room layout on the floor, which was our first time to see the actual sizes of the rooms. It's really exciting to see the architect's drawing coming alive, but it's quite scary to see the actual room sizes for the first time -- are they too big, too small, what will the look like?

We had a meeting with KC Fox, the kitchen supplier today. He is working on a detailed plan for the kitchen and helping us with the company that will make the seating benches in each room. We have also had some really good help from Mart at Fuzion food group. We will be using their super-de-dooper oven technology to create delicious snacks in mere minutes. 

We also had a demonstration of the Aloha point of sale system. The point of sale system lets us handle all the reservations, and handles all the food and drink orders. There are so many POS systems to choose from, but only a few will have the right features for us.

I spent some of the afternoon on the phone to find out more about the best microphones for our rooms. We will be using wireless mikes in all the rooms, so we have to choose a model that will sound good and will not interfere with other equipment.

In other news Kroaky's Facebook Page now has...ta-da...seven fans. We hope to gather together a nice little group of fans before the opening If you're on Facebook please join the group - we'll be making some special offers to our Facebook fans. Thanks for joining!

If you start me up!

Welcome to the Daily Kroak. This is the place to find all kinds of news, views and updates about Kroaky's Karaoke, hosted by Mark Devlin and Kroaky the Frog.

July 11, 2008, was our official start day. We finally signed the lease on Kroaky's new home at 4400 South Tamiami Trail, here in sunny Sarasota. This means that we can finally get started on the construction and prepare for opening on September 1. That's just six weeks away...

First, let's backtrack a little...In the beginning I met Mary, my future wife and partner, at university in Glasgow, Scotland. After graduating in 1989 I went to Japan to find work and a year later Mary joined me. In 1993 we started a magazine that we developed into Metropolis, Japan's number one English magazine. But after 18 years in Japan we decided it was time to move on, so we moved to Sarasota, Florida just before Christmas 2007. You can read more about us here.

After arriving in Sarasota we took some time over Christmas and New Year to investigate new business ideas. We decided to start a private room Karaoke business because we love karaoke and thought it is about time that more Americans also got to know the delights of the private room Karaoke box.

In the States most people experience Karaoke at a bar's karaoke night. The problem is that you either have to be a very good singer, or very drunk to get up and sing in one of those places. You also end up waiting forever to get a chance to sing. Not so in the private room. At Kroaky's you rent your own room with your friends. Most of our rooms are for eight people (we have some larger ones for bigger parties), so you never have to wait a long time to get to your song and you don't embarass yourself in front of a large group. It's your own private karaoke party -- with waiter service!

Although we found the location in April, we had to do a lot of investigation to make sure the property was suitable. We had to check the zoning, the parking restrictions, do a building inspection and then negotiate the lease. This took much. much longer than we expected, but eventually all the papers were signed, sealed, delivered and we were able to start.