Jan Vlachynský: Don't be afraid of ideas from unfamiliar surroundings

His name connects Brno gastronomic establishments such as Bar, which does not exist, Super Panda Circus or 4pokoje. Their visit was recommended by the New York Times. Co-founder and co-owner Jan Vlachynský started his catering business while studying at the Faculty of Social Studies.

While studying at Masaryk University, you created Turbomost - a Christmas stand with apple cider and apple brandy - together with your friend Andrej Valis. What was your journey like?

We started the business in 2008 after the cafés in Brno. It wasn't working very well, we weren't making a profit. But we were getting into café circles. In 2009, we did our first Christmas market Turbomost, a small stall back then. After two seasons, we knew we wanted something for the whole year, and that's how the road to the Bar That Doesn't Exist was born.

It's not hard to run a business with your mate, weren't you worried?

On the contrary. It's hard to do things alone. A lot of people have told us? "Don't do business with a friend. But the moment the business works, there's no reason not to do it. We understand each other and make better decisions. Gradually, we brought in other business owners and today there are about ten co-owners. I pride myself on feedback. When I do business with someone, I spend a lot of time with them.

How do you handle traveling with the business?

We don't travel much anymore. We used to travel regularly for business. We took a four-day trip to Japan, and we went to all the bars and stuff like that. Nowadays I can go to a Japanese bar without going there. All I have to do is look on Instagram. I can't taste the drinks, but otherwise I can figure out a lot of things.

The idea for Super Panda Circus was inspired by the aforementioned Japan. Do you often get inspiration for new ventures abroad?

Yeah, definitely. Good ideas generally come when I'm in an environment that I'm not familiar with and where I don't have an established routine. A lot of things work differently in Japan than they do here. For example, here you can't smoke in businesses, but in Japan you can smoke in businesses. On the other hand, they are not allowed on the street. Their logic is that you can choose to go into a business, but you have to walk down the street. If something like that were here, I wouldn't even notice because I notice the details there, but not here.

In 2021, because of the strict restrictions on Christmas markets, you decided to introduce an NFT image (cryptocurrency) - Cryptomash - to make at least some money. Was this idea a success?

This idea had a media response and marketing also worked. Three hundred people bought it and we found a new way to communicate with people because of it. We said at the time that we would organize Nebál. People bought a ticket by buying an NFT picture. If we have any values that we treat, it's people's trust and attention. At that point, it was a trust game.

Now another Whiskey bar is being born downtown that doesn't exist. How did you decide to put it in this location?

The development of any new business is a lot like seizing an opportunity. The existing whiskey bar was in a location that was written in the minds of Brno regulars. Basically, we were going into something that a large portion of Brnoers already knew. It's similar with the next bar. Americans have three rules for creating new businesses, and that's location, location, location. When this place came up, we asked ourselves what could be done there and why. We came up with a whiskey bar because its radius is two kilometres, so it's very local. A lot of people who go to the bar chat with the staff or know the staff. The place just has that vibe. Of course, there's a lot of question marks about whether it's transferable or whether we're the right ones to do it.

Is there a chance you have another foodie venture up your sleeve that we don't know about yet?

Definitely yes. I've been to two interesting spaces in the last two weeks. If this all works out, then we'll fine-tune the whole plan. One of those plans could come out next year and the other one in three years, but there are a lot of question marks. At this point, we don't know what's going to happen in two years. First, there will be a place and an idea that fits in there that we could do. Then comes the question of whether there are people who could work there who will carry the flag.

We also want to start mixing our own coffee liquor. Now the question is to make sure we don't make it twice as expensive as anyone else. And we're trying to keep developing.

The people from the bar have simply become known among Brno (and not only Brno) regulars. Can you tell me what all the People of the Bar have in common?

I think we are very much connected by hospitality. We want to make people's evening and in some cases day better. It's not about the cocktail or the beer. It's about the relationship with the person and their uniqueness. We don't have one credo. We want to make Brno a more hospitable city.

The interview was published on the website of the student organization AIESEC, which organizes an annual conference on entrepreneurship Symposium, at which Jan Vlachynský was one of the speakers in 2022.