​Cider Corner: ​Keys to Ponder When Searching for New Location

Bull City has been busy as of late when it comes to real estate development. The North Carolina cidery started in Raleigh and had to move due to necessity to Durham. Needing more space in 2017 than Durham could allow, a production space was created in Lexington. Since January of 2021 Bull City has added spaces in Greensboro, Cary, and soon, Wilmington with a possible sixth location on the horizon.

So picking a building and knowing what is needed for a taproom versus a new production space has become something on the forefront of mind for CEO John Clowney. He shared recently about the taprooms and added insights on what to look for when it comes to looking for a new space.

A lot starts with knowing what you plan your space to be, the feel and vibe of the location along with how the spot will function in the future. For a spot like Greensboro, the possibility of doing more production there in the future helps facilitate different needs than the Cary spot which is a 3,000 square-foot taproom only.

READ MORE: ​Cider Corner: Is Adding a Second Location the Right Path?

“Obviously, if it has good access to water and power, that’s important,” he said. “Certainly, if it’s going to be something that does have more production.

“Coming into an old factory space, we had any kind and level of power — and natural gas — that we would need. So that was super important as well.”

Bull City runs a lot of three-phase equipment with a bottling machine, and other equipment, but Clowney said they were looking at moving into a canning machine.

He added it’s important to think about two things:

  • The cost of your utilities and how they work: “Speak with your cities or municipalities and kind of figure out where you’re located and how all that’s going to work.”
  • Make sure you can get the right requirements: “We have about a two-million BTU gas service coming into the building for the different things that we do, both in production and it also services, some of our retail, and then you have (to have) plenty of water and plenty of power coming into the building.”

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