Mike McClung, 29
Just add Tonic | Co-owner of eight local businesses
 
Story by Devin Benton
Video by Caroline Zilk
Photo by Ryan Gladstone

Chances are if you’ve sidled up to a bar in Columbia’s downtown, you’ve sipped a beverage at one of Mike McClung’s establishments. The co-owner, along with brother Patrick, of Quinton’s, Tonic and Déjà Vu hasn’t cornered the market just yet, but his establishments are among the busiest and most successful bars and nightclubs around.

“Having a good, solid, viable business in downtown is a good feeling and something we’re proud of,” Mike McClung says.

Owning and managing these three bars alone is remarkable enough. But then add a tanning salon (Magic Tan), a clothing outlet (Dungarees), a floor-covering business (Accent Floor Coverings), a real estate investment firm (Uptown Investments) and a construction company (Phoenix Contractors) to the line-up of companies that McClung co-owns, and you begin to see how hard-working this local businessman is.

Managing it all is difficult. Patrick minds the construction-related businesses while Mike oversees the nightclubs and bars.

“It’s a lot easier to manage everything being so close together,” Mike McClung says. “I don’t know how well it would work if we were spread all over Columbia.”

With all he has accomplished, it might be easy to assume that the path to success was an easy one, but that isn’t the case. He got his start in the construction industry, and that experience proved useful in developing his work ethic.

“Coming from the construction business, I was used to working hard in rough conditions,” McClung says. “People ask me all the time what is the secret of our success, but the secret is really nothing special. It just comes down to a lot of hard work.”

Along with the sweat involved in building his own businesses, McClung has also planted roots that should keep him, and his companies, here for some time.

“We’ve invested a lot of our life here, and I love living in downtown. I can’t see us leaving Columbia anytime soon.”