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Experience, beer culture on tap at HopCat

By Joe Boomgaard | MSS
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HopCat owner Mark Sellers takes a unique approach to running and operating his business by placing a premium on his employees and customers having fun at the Grand Rapids bar. The focus on fun drives a creative culture that people want to be around. PHOTO: JOE BOOMGAARD

HopCat focuses on serving the best beer made and good food, as well as supplying patrons with entertainment. Co-owner Michelle Sellers keeps the beer-drinking legions informed with a regular newsletter of events, special pours, and beer-food pairings. PHOTO: JOE BOOMGAARD

GRAND RAPIDS — Sick of the daily hustle and stress and want to have more fun? Quit your job and open a bar.

That’s what former Chicago hedge fund manager Mark Sellers did.

“I got sick of it — that cerebral and intellectual stuff,” Sellers told Main Street Strategies. “And it’s not good for society when too many people are playing in the giant casino — the stock market. I got burned out, and I was not adding value to society. Now I’m doing something a lot more fun and interesting and a lot less lucrative. … I just didn’t want any part of corporate America.”

After closing his Chicago-based investment company and moving back to his native West Michigan, Sellers and Michelle, his wife, started HopCat, a beer bar on the corner of Ionia Street and Weston in downtown Grand Rapids. After dealing with the stresses of handling other people’s money, he said he needed to take a break and focus on doing something he thought was fun. And what’s not to like about beer and good food?

“I really just wanted to have fun. I didn’t do it for the money because I didn’t really need to make any more money. That’s an enviable position, and I don’t expect entrepreneurs to be in that position,” he said. “The bar business is a fun thing, and I want to make money in it. … You do what you love and the money follows.”

What entrepreneurs learn from Sellers is his focus on company culture, which at HopCat is best summed up in one word — fun. As the owner, Sellers sets the tone for the business and the rest of the people working there. Because he’s focused on creating a culture supportive of creativity and happiness and hiring like-minded employees, he doesn’t have to be a task master whipping the staff into shape at every turn. And as a beer connoisseur, the thought goes that if Sellers likes something, chances are likely that others will, too.

“We have a saying — ‘What would Mark want?’ The owner is the customer, and if you think of it like that, it’s easier to make decisions,” Sellers said. “I didn’t try to guess what would be popular. I started this for myself. It’s really hard to guess what other people like if an entrepreneur is not a customer of his own product line. I wanted to focus on a local thing, small breweries and good food.”

And it appears to be working. BeerAdvocate magazine named HopCat the “Third Best Place on Earth to Have a Pint” for the second consecutive year — the first two years the bar has been open.

Sellers drew on his experience of traveling for business and pleasure and visiting bars and restaurants the world over when he created HopCat to serve customers great beer. With his tastes in mind, he chose an old building with great architecture in downtown Grand Rapids and hired a friend from Chicago to do the interior design with lots of old signs and locally made art.

The beer list — HopCat’s pièce de résistance — features 48 craft beers on tap and 150 bottled beers, all selections Sellers would want to quaff. The entire list originated from smaller microbreweries from Michigan — including Founder’s, New Holland, and Bell’s —and across the world, as well as from a group of in-house brewers.

Another key to HopCat’s success was finding the right day-to-day manager — although that’s not a title used at the bar. Garry Boyd is HopCat’s ringleader.

“We want people to come to work and have a good time. They’re speaking to people and they should have fun all day long. When people see you’re having fun at work, they want to be a part of that,” Boyd said. “We want (staff) to have an endless conversation about beer. We want to be the beer drinkers’ home in West Michigan.”

Although HopCat’s target audience is the community of beer aficionados, the staff also knows that not everyone is on the same level of beer appreciation. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of beer styles and tastes, they can help even the neophyte or “corporate” drinker find something new. Coupled with beer events and entertainment, Boyd said HopCat has been able to earn the community’s trust when they want “to explore the world of beer.”
With such high expectations, Boyd and Sellers needed to hire the right people to fit within HopCat’s culture, and they hire people after an unconventional interview process.
“We ask people to tell a joke. You must have one good joke to tell all the time, and if you don’t, then you’re not a real outgoing person,” Sellers said.

“Then we ask to go see their car to see what it looks like on the inside,” Boyd said, noting that how people treat their own space is indicative of how they’d treat the workplace. “You can make decisions based on the bottom line or based on what’s fun. When (your decisions) are based on having a good time, you want the place to look good and be clean. The idea is that they’re coming in to do this as a fun venture. I’ve been in the restaurant business for 20 years, and there’s nothing like it.”

Sellers is hoping to replicate HopCat’s success with two new Grand Rapids bars, each based on a different theme — one a 1940s art deco Chicago supper club and the other a 1970s dive joint. Since moving back to Grand Rapids in May 2007, he’s loved watching the city’s nightlife and culture evolve, and he wants to continue to be involved.

“The city is on its way up, and that’s unique in Michigan,” Sellers said. “It’s got the vibe of a big city and yet it’s not congested and loud and noisy.” MSS

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• grand rapids
• hopcat
• small business