Building A Small Brewpub - 9
Well first off I’m back after an excellent couple weeks in the maritime islands of Canada, biking and hiking. As a Colorado guy I can’t move to Canada unless I open a brewery or find someone to partner with. Hmmmm. Anyway, where were we?
The following is a fictional description of opening a brewpub.
I found 6 more Grundy tanks for $800 each. They are unfortunately too far away for me to drive, so I will have to hire a truck to pick them up. The brewery selling them will put them on pallets for me. I am figuring I will need to add $4,000 for shipping but it might be less. They don’t weigh that much.
That gives me the 3 that I initially bought and these 6, which is more than I need, so I will make one into a hot liquor tank, and I still may chop the top off one, add a reinforcing ring where I take the top off, and make a false bottom. That would make a nice mash tun. A door on the side would be nice but I don’t mind shoveling out of the top either. The doors on the ones I just bought won’t work, so I’ll use one of the first ones.
On my to-do list is a food menu. I want this to be VERY simple to start. I can always add later. I’m thinking maybe 5 or 6 pizzas and 2 salads. Maybe -
Pizza Margarita-San Marzano tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil
Pepperoni - tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni
Rustica - garlic olive oil, mozzarella, roasted red pepper, capicola ham, gorgonzola cheese
Mediterranean - tomato sauce, spinach, mozzarella, roasted red pepper, goat cheese, kalamata olives
Salsicia - tomato sauce, mozzarella, mushrooms, fennel sausage, goat cheese
Spring Salad - mixed lettuces, dried cranberries, walnuts, fresh tomato, asiago cheese
Caesar - romaine lettuce tossed with croutons, caesar dressing, shaved parmesan
A menu like this doesn’t require a chef and any high-schooler can make them. We will of course make our own dough. The recipe is just a high quality 00 pizza flour, yeast, salt, and water. You make the dough, place it in a tub, then the next day divide it up into 9 oz. balls. We will hand stretch the dough to form a pizza but I will find a used dough divider on eBay which will speed up making the 9 oz balls. You simply place about 10.5 pounds of dough into the divider and pull the handle down once to squish it, then the second time you pull the handle down it release the knives which cuts it into 18 pieces that can quickly be made into balls that go onto trays, ready for the cook to form the pizza.
If I am doing simple pizza and salads I believe my food costs should hover around 22 to 25%. I won’t know for sure until I get prices from distributers and can calculate the raw costs of each item. But if I were shooting for say a 25% food cost, I could take the cost of the pizza, let’s say the ingredients add up to $1.76 for a pizza margarita, and divide that number by .25 the answer would be $7.04. If I charged that for this pizza my food cost would be 25%. But I will charge more and have a food cost on this one item of maybe 11%. That will balance out against something like the Rustica, which may cost $4.15 and I don’t want to charge the $18 I would need to be at 25% on that one, so I will charge less for the Rustica and more for the Margarita. It all works out.
Next I want to put the equipment package together for the kitchen, but first I need to finish gathering up all my brewing equipment. Time is getting tighter. Plumbing is in, the electrician is working and we are about to start framing walls, so it’s starting to really happen. For good luck I get fifty-cent pieces, spit on them, and hide them in the wet cement and in the walls for good luck. Why not?
And finally, continuing on with my business system, I first identified the positions in the brewpub. Now I need to make up training checklists. This is so I am consistent in the way I train each position. I started by thinking “what would the perfect (fill in the blank) be like. Then I started making checklists of what I want that position to know in a perfect world. I started with the bartender.
When I train, each person will train at least three days and we will go over the same checklist every day. They will sign it at the bottom, so in the future if they do something wrong they can’t say “I didn’t know.” I made up a sheet for each position. I also know that as we are open and get experience this will change and expand, but I have it on the computer, so it’s no big deal.
Sequence of Events
Find a suitable location - check
Draw up a floor plan - check
Check with the town zoning to see if a brewpub is allowed in that location - check
Get someone from the building department to do a walk through in the space while showing them my plan to see if they see any pitfalls - check
Set up Company - check
Set up bank account and fund - check
Draw plumbing plans - check
Draw up detail kitchen plans - check
Meet with architect and engineer - check
Apply for state and federal licenses - check
Come up with a name - check
Get insurance set up - check
Acquire additional funding - check
Sign the lease - check
Demo for plumbing - check
Hire Contractor - check
Start acquiring equipment - in progress
Start on Business System - in progress
Food Menu - in progress
Service System - to do
POS System - to to
Oyster! - to do
Thanks for making me hungry!