the bulk of our promotion is done on Facebook
There's your problem. Social media is a
**** way to market new drinking holes, you know what happens when someone recieves word of that event you're running? They don't even look at it.
Aside from that, ONLY facebook on the social media front and a bit of flyering? Have you done any research on promoting a venue?
Without taking a proper look I can't really advise you where to take your business (I've helped drag a similarly failing business out of the
**** before) but what I will say is this.
1. Find your signature and stick with it - some venues do good with DJ's alone, some with local bands, some with big bands and some just do good because they're obscure - I've even encountered a place which served pancakes as a beer snack.
Trying to do everything at once just never works.
2. Making somewhere cool needn't be difficult - hunt for random cool stuff on ebay and in scrap yards and cake the walls in it. That is a good way to make a place look good on a budget and the 18-25 crowd love it.
3. Drink offers, drink events. Research not only in the local area but what the rest of the country is doing - look at what similar businesses are doing, attend their nights (it's like a low rent corporate espionage). I'll give you a for instance: "Beer stock exchange" nights tend to be wholy successful - not too profitable but in the early stages you're looking at building a following, where you lose out on straight profit you increase numbers through word of mouth. You need to track this though - what works for one place won't work for another, monitor your attendance and bar sales.
Successful businesses don't just happen - they take research, experience and a lot of hard work.
I could tell you a million things which might work but it's up to you to do the leg work, business ownership isn't smooth sailing 8 hour days. It's 100 hour weeks during the early stages.
Insipid aptly described most of them.
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