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TRANSCRIPT

Today we’re talking about food. [Pans to photos of food at breweries] Nom nom, smashy, snacks, anyone feeling peckish? The reason I love food is because if you have a consistent food program, a quality food program, you’re going to see an increase in beer sales of 30% or more!

What does that mean, math-wise, Chris? What does that mean? If you’re doing 100 pints a day, it’s going to push you up by 30 pints.

If on a Saturday you’re doing 300 pints, it’s going to push you up by 90 pints. At least 90 more pints.

What’s the most profitable sale in our retail establishment? Our pints, our pours. Food keeps the customer around longer for the incremental sale.

Which brings me to my next point: Which revenue mindset does food most align with?

Always be closing.

Right? We want to use the story of the food, the kitchen, the chef, the creation of it, and the creation of the beer to develop stories.

Remember the situational training I talked about? This is exactly it. This is exactly it. Anytime you walk into a restaurant, there is the pro-active sale. The same training needs to happen with your team.

I’ve been preaching food for years now and lots of customers and friends have taken my advice and implemented it. I was a hard-line, “You run your own kitchen, you build your own kitchen, you operate it, you staff it, you purchase it, you design it.”

Some of our customers have proven me wrong with this model. That is not the only model. That is certainly a model and it’s a challenging model.

It takes a ton of work. Some other models I have seen working are if you have a killer, killer establishment — retail establishment. You are at a point where you can begin to pull consistent reliable food trucks.

And anytime I talk to a brewery owner and they are like, “We slay the food truck game,” I kinda get turned on. I thought food trucks were written off. I thought they were dead. I can’t believe — I can’t even refute or rebut the food truck argument when someone is so confident about bringing food trucks in.

I could tell in about three and a half seconds when they are not confident and that tells me a lot about their retail establishment as a whole.

I’m also seeing a lot of people bringing food trucks and asking them to stay there permanently. Or stay there for three to six months. Almost like a rotating chef food truck situation where the customers can rely on the same menu for an extended period of time, but they’re excited when that rolls out and you bring in a new truck.

I’m seeing partnerships where breweries will build out the full kitchen and then bring in a food operator. They do the labor, they do the staffing, they do the scheduling, they purchase the food, they’ve done it before. This is not their first rodeo so it makes it easier on them. And you get to focus on your beverage and your programming to hopefully help both.

Those are probably the three most popular models now that I’m seeing. Actually it’s four popular models, right? So it’s your own kitchen, it’s rotating food trucks, it’s parked food trucks or trailers, and then it’s kitchen partnerships, right?

Those are the models that I’m seeing working. What I’m also seeing working, and you probably have figured this out, it’s what I call the suburban pub, right?

Suburban pubs are killing it right now. Suburban pubs are destroying urban taprooms and urban pubs. So there you have it, that’s my food outlook and I’m still a huuuuge, huuuuuge proponent of offering food in your retail establishment.

I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
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