Inside a Lombok beach club deal: €1.4M build, €920K year-1 revenue
We had access to a beach-front operator's first-year P&L. Here's what we learned about the unit economics of Lombok's premium F&B.
Names changed. Numbers verified by the founders, with permission to publish, audited by their Indonesian accountant. This is the most honest beach-club P&L we've ever published.
The opportunity
Tanjung Aan, late 2023. A 1,200 sqm beachfront plot came on the market via a private off-market deal at €380,000 (33-year leasehold, with a registered 25-year extension). Two Australian operators with prior bar experience in Bali signed within 9 days. Build started Q1 2024.
The build cost: €1.04M
| Line item | Cost (€) | |---|---| | Land lease (33y) | 380,000 | | Architecture & permits | 48,000 | | Structural build | 312,000 | | Kitchen + back-of-house | 96,000 | | Bar build + equipment | 71,000 | | Furniture + soft furnishings | 64,000 | | Pool + pool deck | 38,000 | | Landscaping + sound system | 31,000 |
Plus working capital float of €60K and pre-opening marketing of €18K → €1,176,000 invested at opening.
Operating year 1 — revenue
The club opened October 2024. Fiscal year Q4 '24 → Q3 '25.
- Food & beverage: €612,000 (avg cover €34, 18,000 covers)
- Day-bed rental + entry fees: €186,000
- Events / private hire (12 events): €96,000
- Retail (branded merch): €26,000
Total revenue: €920,000.
Operating year 1 — costs
- COGS (28% of F&B): €171K
- Staff (47 full-time equivalents at peak): €264K
- Rent already amortised in year 0. Utilities: €58K (sound system + walk-in fridges run hot)
- Marketing (mostly creator collabs): €72K
- Maintenance + cleaning: €38K
- Music licensing / DJ fees: €54K
- Insurance, accounting, compliance: €31K
- Indonesian taxes (PPh + VAT net): €72K
Total operating costs: €760K.
EBITDA year 1: €160K, or 17.4% margin.
What we learned
Margin compression in year 2. The operators projected 24% EBITDA in year 2 and hit 19%. The miss was almost entirely driven by labour: minimum wage in NTB (West Nusa Tenggara) increased 14% in 2025, and the staffing model assumed continued availability of trained F&B labour at 2024 prices. They've responded by automating dishwashing and by negotiating multi-year staff retention contracts at locked rates.
Day-bed economics. The single highest-margin line. A day-bed costs €620 to source (Bali manufacture, shipped); rents at €38–55/day; pays back in ~16 days; lasts 2.5 years before refurbishment. Build the right number of beds.
The MotoGP weekend. One weekend in Q1 generated €71K in revenue (8% of annual revenue in 3 days). This is over-indexed — but Tanjung Aan operators have a known calendar premium for that weekend and 12 months of advance bookings.
Total return picture
Including capital appreciation on the underlying lease (+22% in 18 months due to scarcity), the founders are showing an unrealised IRR of ~28% on initial capital — and that's the early years. They project steady-state EBITDA at €280–340K from year 3 once the F&B mix stabilises and dishwashing automation lands.
Replicability
This is a hard model to replicate. Beachfront leases in Tanjung Aan now trade at €620–800K, the labour pool is tighter, and the planning department has paused new beach-club permits for 12 months. We'd be very cautious of anyone pitching a "Tanjung Aan beach club opportunity" in 2026 unless they've already secured the land lease, the construction permit, and the alcohol licence — those three things take 14–18 months to assemble from a cold start.
The villas-and-land thesis remains live in Tanjung Aan. The beach-club thesis is mostly closed.