Drinking places had 55 employer establishments in Douglas County, WI in 2023, 38 of them with a ZIP 54880 address (CBP, ZBP).
Glenland Credit of Superior, Wisconsin explains how Douglas County taverns fund remodels, kitchens and quiet months, the alcohol license fees the City of Superior lists, and an invented draft system and kitchen addition.
At a glance
- Drinking place employers
Drinking places (alcoholic beverages), Douglas County, WI: 55 employer establishments (CBP 2023)
- Drinking place payroll
Drinking places (alcoholic beverages), Douglas County, WI: $6.1 million annual payroll (CBP 2023)
- Drinking places in ZIP 54880
Drinking places (alcoholic beverages), ZIP 54880: 38 employer establishments (ZBP 2023)
Bar Business Financing Options: Kitchen Additions and Draft Systems in Superior, WI
A bar adding a kitchen changes its business: food brings in daytime and family traffic, and it adds a hood, a fryer, a flat-top, a prep cooler and the plumbing and electrical to run them. The equipment goes on equipment financing; walls, plumbing and the hood installation can go on a term loan.
Ask the kitchen contractor to price the hood and fire suppression separately from the cooking line. The hood is tied to the building and may stay with it; the cooking line moves with the business, and a lender treats the two differently as collateral.
A draft system, towers, lines, a glycol chiller and the keg cooler, is equipment in its own right, and a tap wall that sells more pints per keg than bottles pays for itself in waste saved.
Pub Business Loan: Slow-Season Payroll and Ice Machines in Superior, WI
A pub's slow season shows in the card deposits: a few months when sales fall and the wages, rent and utilities stay. A working capital loan sized for those months, or a line opened while sales are strong, carries the stretch. An ice machine is a different cost, equipment that lasts years, and goes on equipment financing.
How bars cover payroll in slow months works a ten-week stretch in invented figures.
Pub Business Loans Around Superior, WI for Patio Additions
A patio addition, with fencing, furniture, heaters and lighting, is a one-time build used for years and fits a term loan or equipment financing for the furniture and heaters. In Superior, an outdoor serving area can also change the licensed premises; ask the City Clerk's office how a premises change is handled before building.
Patio heaters and a retractable awning stretch the patio season at either end, and both can ride on the same equipment loan as the furniture when they are on one quote.
The city lists a $25 fee to amend the premises for a special event, which is separate from a permanent patio.
Bar Business Loans for Tavern Owners: Slow-Season Payroll
For a tavern owner the slow season is a recurring funding question. Three routes exist: a working capital loan with fixed payments, a line drawn and cleared as sales return, and a merchant cash advance, which is not a loan and is collected from card batches. In a slow month an advance with a true percentage holdback collects less, which stretches its term; a loan payment stays the same.
Compare the total dollar cost of each; the merchant cash advance page works an invented week.
55 Drinking Places With Payroll in Douglas County, WI, 38 in ZIP 54880
Drinking places had 55 employer establishments, 412 paid employees and $6.1 million in annual payroll in Douglas County, WI in 2023, and 23 of the 55 (41.8%) had fewer than five employees (CBP). No four-digit industry in Douglas County, WI outnumbered drinking places except restaurants and other eating places, at 74.
Food services and drinking places as a whole had 135 employer establishments in the county, so drinking places made up 55 of them, restaurants and other eating places 74 and other food services the remaining 6 (CBP, our arithmetic).
38 of those drinking places had a ZIP 54880 address (ZBP). The Nonemployer Statistics program counted 9 drinking places with no paid employees in the county in 2024, a separate count.
City of Superior, WI Alcohol Licenses: Fees the City Clerk Lists for Taverns
The City Clerk's office in Superior lists these alcohol license fees: Class A Beer $100, Class B Beer $100, Class B Liquor and Class B Beer together $600, Class C Wine $100, and a temporary Class B beer or wine license $10. Liquor license applicants also pay a $20 publication fee, and applications use the Wisconsin Department of Revenue forms, including the AB-200 application.
The city also lists a two-year tavern operator (bartender) license at $30, which requires a Responsible Beverage Server course certificate, and an annual entertainment cabaret license at $350 (superiorwi.gov, checked 2026-10-24). Confirm current fees and rules with the City Clerk's office before budgeting.
An Invented Draft System and Kitchen Addition for a Superior, WI Tavern
Illustration only, invented figures: a Superior, WI tavern installs a $29,000 draft system with a glycol chiller. Paid across five years at an invented annual rate of 9.75%, the taps and chiller cost about $613 a month (our arithmetic).
Invented figures continued: a year later it adds a $64,000 kitchen on a loan over 84 months at an invented annual rate of 9.25%, about $1,038 a month. The two payments together come to about $1,650 a month, and the owner checks that against the kitchen's expected food margin before signing (our arithmetic).
Equipment financing covers draft systems and kitchen lines.
By Glenland Credit · Updated
