Breweries And Fine Dining: Get on the Menu and Boost Your Reputation
Craft beer and fine dining may not always be thought of together - but they should be. If your beer fits the environment and tells the right story, it could be a welcome addition to a fine dining restaurant's menu. Beer is cheaper than wine but can still be premium, especially for savvy customers who understand quality.
Distributor Communication Strategy: How to Keep Your Beers Top of Mind
There’s a real connection between communication and how much beer you sell through a distributor. Regular, focused communication with your distributor is likely to improve reorder frequency. But don’t just communicate for its own sake - bring something useful to the table.
Forecasting the True Cost of a Lease: Rent Escalation Modeling for Breweries
Rent that increases at a compounding rate can quietly add thousands of dollars to your total out-of-pocket cost over the course of a lease. That’s why it’s critical to forecast how your rent will grow when evaluating lease options.
Auditing Your Brewery’s Hidden Lease Costs
Triple-net expenses like taxes, insurance, and maintenance can easily equal 30% to 50% of your rent. Perhaps even more. Asking your landlord for an itemized breakdown (from the past couple of years or so) is a smart move. Take a few minutes to scan the details and look for anything that stands out - big year-over-year jumps or pass-through costs that don’t make sense.
Is Your Lease Eating Your Profits? Benchmarking Occupancy Costs in a Small Brewery
Occupancy cost for your brewery consists of base rent and any NNN (triple-net) charges. Comparing these numbers to your annual revenue gives you your occupancy percentage of revenue - a valuable measuring stick for benchmarking. The generally recommended upper limit is around 10%. Anything above that can be a red flag, especially if your revenue has been volatile.
Not Every Beer That’s A Hit Is Worth Repeating
Beers that customers love aren’t always profitable. Don’t rely solely on customer feedback to decide whether a one-off, small-batch beer deserves a comeback. Use hard data to check your emotions (and your customers’) before committing valuable resources to experimental brews.
Rent vs Market: How To Know if You’re Overpaying per Square Foot
It’s well worth your time to calculate your dollar-per-square-foot-per-year rate, which is simply your total annual occupancy cost divided by your square footage. Then compare that to local listings. Market rates can shift quickly, especially if it’s been a couple of years since you last negotiated.
Expand Your Rewards Program Without Wrecking Your Margins
Get creative with your brewery's rewards program. It doesn’t have to be limited solely to beer. Food, merchandise, exclusive events - all these elements can add value and make your best customers feel special. But, be careful not to give the house away.
Quantify What You Want in Your Next Brewery Lease
Break a potential lease down and calculate its dollar impact per year - then incorporate that into what you ask for when it’s time to negotiate. Things like tenant improvement (TI) funds, exit clauses, and capped NNN increases should be treated as negotiable, not extras. Use anchoring: ask for two or three concessions you’d love to have.