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Beer/wine for takeout, delivery?

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Missy_PMQ

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Does anyone deliver beer or wine? What about selling alcohol with takeout orders? Are there regulations against either of those? I would guess it depends on the state?
 
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It depends on your local city’s rules and regulations. Around here, you can serve Alcohol. I do not know of any restraunts that deliver, but i know of several liqour stores that do delivery.

As i have a dinning room, from time to time i have thought about doing Bottled beer only. Usually decide against it for two reasons,
First employee’s, i could not employee any counter people under the age of 18.
Second licensing. The city of boulder’s liqour licensing is horrendous. (chipotle around here serves bottled only as part of there menu)

Then you have to also deal with the whole underage selling aspect. Not only does the person who sold it get fined and possible jail time, but the business gets fined and from time to time they get shut down in our area.

I would rather just stay in business
 
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In Baltimore we can sell what they call “off sale” beer and liquor with the appropriate license. Our license is for both “on” and “off”. We don’t have delivery service, but we occasionally get a request for “off” sales with pickup orders … and we accommodate those customers. We’ve checked it out, and it looks as though we could also deliver it, if we ever decide to do that.
 
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For those of you who sell beer and wine, what percentage would you say is sold beer vs wine?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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We are also a carryout that sells beer and wine. When we delivered, we delivered beer and wine as well. I never saw anything that prohibited it seeing as the actual sale occurred here at our licensed location. They called here, it was rung up here and the delivery person followed all the age verification checks they would if the person was standing in the store. I’m sure there are probably wrinkles, as there always are with Ohio’s weird liquor laws, but that’s how we approached it. But we don’t deliver anymore so we don’t have to worry about it. The next battle is a dine in licence.
 
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We’ve had some regular in-house customers ask if we could deliver alcohol, I’m not sure of the legality in my area, but I will look into it.

Since my area is fueled by alcohol, this may just be a great side biz for us. Thank you for the idea.
 
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Still makes me so nervous I would not go near it for delivery.

On the phone:

“I would like to order a 12” pepperoni and a 12 pack"

“OK, great (get address etc etc) Will there be someone there with ID for delivery?”

“Oh yes, absolutely”

At the front door:

“Do you have ID?”

“Sure thing, will this portrait of Andrew Jackson take care of it?”

Looking around… “Yes, I think that covers it”

Headline in tomorrows paper about the high school seniors killed while driving drunk on beer that was delivered to underage customers from XYZ pizza.

Exactly how much do you trust each and every one of your drivers to check ID? At least in the store there is a manager looking things over.
 
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We never had the volume you guys do. And we are in a small, rural community with mostly regulars. I guess my thinking on drivers is that if I don’t trust them out on the road, then I don’t trust them working for me. I’ve learned you can always get burned.

But we had a few people that would call up for deliveries that didn’t include prepared food. We had an older lady that would order groceries for us to deliver. As for beer, I like the idea that beer drinkers are off the road as much as possible. All the orders pay the delivery fee and are more likely than others to tip the drivers. So that part never bothered me. We lost some business when we stopped delivering, but not enough to pay offset how much delivery was costing us in all kinds of costs.
 
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We never had the volume you guys do. And we are in a small, rural community with mostly regulars. I guess my thinking on drivers is that if I don’t trust them out on the road, then I don’t trust them working for me. I’ve learned you can always get burned.

But we had a few people that would call up for deliveries that didn’t include prepared food. We had an older lady that would order groceries for us to deliver. As for beer, I like the idea that beer drinkers are off the road as much as possible. All the orders pay the delivery fee and are more likely than others to tip the drivers. So that part never bothered me. We lost some business when we stopped delivering, but not enough to pay offset how much delivery was costing us in all kinds of costs.
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I do not consider myself high-volume at all on the pizza side, now BBQ, yeah, we get killed on that.
My dishwasher is also my delivery guy, so it is not costing us anything extra, he gets his dish wage + tips, so he is happy I just need to get our delivery levels up to bring up our volume
 
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Not only should one research the State and Local laws regarding delivering alcohol to customers one should also contact their insurance agent regarding their liquor liability insurance policy. I am working in the insurance field on the loss control side of things. I can tell you that a big RED flag will be raised if it is learned that home delivery of alcohol is being done. It is a strong possibility that your liquor liability policy will be cancelled by the carrier. Insurance companies are very picky on the sale of alcohol and the safeguards that are in place. If you are planning to deliver alcohol I would strongly recommend that you check with your agent of your plans to see how that will impact your insurance policy.
 
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“Hi is Pete working tonight?”

“I’ll get him”

“Hi, this is Pete”

“Hey Pete, Mark. I need a calzone and a case of Budweiser… do you think you can get the delivery?”

“No problem, I am the only one driving right now”…
 
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bodegahwy said:
“Hi is Pete working tonight?”

“I’ll get him”

“Hi, this is Pete”

“Hey Pete, Mark. I need a calzone and a case of Budweiser… do you think you can get the delivery?”

“No problem, I am the only one driving right now”…
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Your posts lead me to believe you have terrible employees…
 
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On the contrary… But I am also realistic. Take off your rose colored glasses about your own employees. In 16 years I have had a couple of hundred employees, they are not angels. If you think that none of your drivers has ever stopped and picked up a 12 pack or cigarettes for a customer or would not do so for a nice tip you are just kidding yourself. I am not saying that they all do it, most do not, but some do. I started as a driver in this business in 1978. Ever since then a portion of those “call before delivery” requests have been so the customer can ask the driver to do an errand… it is just harder to police these days in the age of the cell phone.

Having beer for delivery just increases the opportunities in my view. I am just happy that none of the dispensaries are on the way to our main delivery areas!
 
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bodegahwy said:
Having beer for delivery just increases the opportunities in my view. I am just happy that none of the dispensaries are on the way to our main delivery areas!
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That made me chuckle, as i have 3 dispensaries and 4 grow facilities within 2 blocks of my store. There employee’s are some of my best customers 😃
 
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d9phoenix said:
That made me chuckle, as i have 3 dispensaries and 4 grow facilities within 2 blocks of my store. There employee’s are some of my best customers 😃
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Hopefully a clearly stated and often repeated policy concerning side trips is part of your driver training!
 
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We actually do side trips for a few customers. Not full on grocery shopping but we pick up a few things here and there. People appreciate the hell out of it.

I’m glad everyone else is so black and white by the book with their rules and guidelines because it only separates us further from the rest of typical boring corporate America…
 
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If I find it is legal in my area, and I have delivery guys that earn my trust, I am going for it. The powers that be are feverishly looking for a current law that prohibits it, and so far it looks legal.

But! If I ever hear of one of my crew delivering a “Bob Marley Special, Extra crispy” I will rain down hell upon them in epic proportions.
We’ve got a solid LE customer base here, and I do not need to get on the bad side of them, cuz these guys usually let minor infractions slide with my employees, or if I ever get noticed doing a few MPH over, they’ll usually tease me or my guys about it instead of citing them or us.
 
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