Two recent Spring Hill alumni overcame many obstacles to open Bohayden’s, their bar in downtown Mobile, within two years of graduating.
Beau Monteiro had dreamt of opening his own bar for years, and Hayden Constantine hopped on board during their senior year of college. For a long time, the dream remained simply as a topic of conversation for the friends to throw back and forth.
Constantine and Monteiro graduated from SHC in 2021 and went their separate ways.
“We did our own things for a while. Beau went to Chicago, I stayed here in Mobile, but after a while we felt like, ‘let’s just get this thing going, let’s do it,’” said Constantine.
Once they decided to take the idea seriously, the process of finding a space for the bar, obtaining the necessary permits, hiring staff members, and eventually opening the bar took about 9 months.
Owning the business has not come without its setbacks. Bohayden’s was initially supposed to feature golf simulators for guests to reserve, but they eventually had to be removed due to complications which left the machines unreliable and too expensive to operate. They also had to work through multiple concerns raised by building inspectors before the bar could even open.
He and Monteiro had to fill out countless forms in order to make sure they could operate their bar within the regulations of the state, as well as countless small things that come with opening any business.
In August 2023, Bohayden’s transitioned from revolving around golf simulators to marketing more of a traditional bar with live music.
Constantine always believed that working should not be a chore but rather something you want to do. He said, “This is something that Beau and I don’t just do for money. It is a passion of ours to offer people a fun night out on the town, and I think we are accomplishing that.”
Constantine referred to owning a bar as trying to manage the chaos that goes along with it.
According to Constantine, the owners have yet to run into any issues that would be particularly damaging to the bar’s success, and for that he is both thankful and optimistic about the future. He said he could not be more thankful to own a bar that he runs with his best friends and could not imagine doing anything else.
For more information about Bohayden’s, visit https://www.bohaydens.com.
