Any of you dine-in guys not sell beer?

[Freddy_Krugerrand]

Just curious if anybody who has a dine-in pizza restaurant does NOT sell beer? And for those of you who do not, why?

Those of you who do, what percentage of average profit comes from beer?

 

[Kris]

I don’t think any of us has the time to read all the reasons we no longer sell beer…

We sold beer and wine until about 10 years ago. When we stopped we were extremely concerned how it would effect our sales…10 years later don’t even question our decision and don’t even notice it in our sales.

Now for why we stopped:

We are in a small town which has more bars than restaurants. Drinking is a way of life here…

We had been debating about not selling alcohol after we had a visit from liquor patrol saying we had served minors. (Oddly I had been the server to this table and specifically remember checking the 2 ids which they claimed they never showed me)

During our dollar draft night a regular who often came in on wed with his 2 daughters during visitation. He was usually pretty toasted and our servers were told not to serve him more than 2 beers…EVER. After we refused to serve him a fight erupted. He ended up throwing a parm. cheese shaker across the restaurant toward the employees. My husband said for a buck I am risking his life and the life of his children…not worth it.

One night one of our regulars called us at home and said they had observed our employees taking out the trashcans they had filled with beer.
We also were told a few years back from an old employee we actually supplied most of the weekend beer for their senior class…despite the safeguards we had in place to keep track of inventory.

I don’t drink much and really have no problem with anyone who has a beer now and again but found it difficult in a town full of what I consider heavy drinkers to aid in their destruction.

What is also nice about NOT selling alcohol…we have no age limits on employees, shift leaders and managers.

Kris

 

[indie_pizza]

I don’t right now, and I’m not pleased with myself about it. The issue I’m dealing with is trying to find a way to do draft beer sales. I don’t have room anywhere to put in a draft cooler, but to do only do bottles takes up way to much space in my small cooler. The only decent option I can think of is to drill holes through the wall behind my service counter into my cooler and run tap lines through it. But, I’m worried about what’s going to happen to the beer sitting in the line between the cooler and the wall.

If I could find a good way to sell pitchers with my pizza, I would have a great combination that would increase my customer’s satisfaction and also my income, selling a pitcher is just easy money. I just haven’t been able to find a way to do it right.

 

[thepizza]

indie pizza:

But, I’m worried about what’s going to happen to the beer sitting in the line between the cooler and the wall.

Look into a glycol system that keeps the beer lines refrigerated all the way from the cooler to the tap handles.

 

[adagio]

We don’t serve alcohol mainly because I didn’t feel like trying to get the license to sell, plus our focus is to be a family establishment - just one more reason I decided not to try to jump through the hoops. While we’ve had numerous customs ask us why we don’t serve beer, we’ve also had quite a few that have told us that they come because we don’t serve alcohol.