Your brewery’s taproom business hours most likely have been altered recently and now have been determined by existing demand, which of course for some has been in somewhat of a constant sea of change due to the pandemic. That can mean reduced hours to help control expenditures, or in some cases, it can mean pre-planning to open back to normal with new sets of standards.
Lone Tree Brewing determined that the taproom would work slowly back to pre-pandemic operating days and times before the Denver-area brewery was actually allowed to reopen.
”We had discussions with our team about operating hours and the operating days that the tasting room would open every week while we were only allowed to do to-go sales,” explained Tasting Room Manager Mike Webster. ”We knew that there would be a demand from customers to come into our brewery every day of the week to drink our beers when we were able to open up for on-site consumption.”
Webster added that they knew they would have to be on limited operating hours in the tasting room until Lone Tree’s management would be able to get more staff on the payroll as to not work the staff too many hours and burn them out at the same time.
”Once we were able to get staffed up with enough beertenders and hosts, we were able to go back to normal operating hours,” he said.
When it came to planning the reopen, Webster pointed out that they would need new beertenders that knew about beer, the beer industry, and how to serve.
“We wouldn’t be spending a great amount of time having to train someone up on all of the workings that come with beertending,” he said. “We also got informed that we had to come up with a seating system which meant we would have to hire friendly hosts to control guests coming in our front door.
“We did not have enough staff to fulfill the hours that were required for the new service standards procedures for our normal operating hours. We ended up hiring more beertenders and hosts to get fully staffed.”
It has been an adjustment for Cascade Brewing’s on-premise model as the facility’s taproom/pub sales have dipped nearly 80 percent this year, said General Manager Grant Ritchie. To help combat the lower income, the Portland, Oregon-based brewery has online ordering available for consumers to place an order for pick up during open hours.
Ritchie added that social media promotions supplement promoting any selling options.
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