Do As Buonodono Did

Dan and Sonia Buonodono

Growth. It’s our north star, but sometimes I ask, should it be? I was contacted by a well-established brewery that has been around for years, and they are wisely thinking about their next move. Should they be satisfied with their current sales volume or should they expand into serious distribution? My first thought was, “why not do as Dan and Sonia Buonodono did?”

Let me back up a bit. Dan did our class about ten years ago. He had just retired and loved home brewing. He was president of his local home brew club and very involved in it. He told me it was a lot of work, but it was work that he enjoyed. Why not take it to the next level and become a pro? So out to Colorado he came and spent a week with us in our immersion course. He went back home and built Eagle Monk Brewing in Lansing Michigan.

Eagle Monk

It's a small place. He bought one of Forgeworks early brew kettles, a dairy tank for a mash tun (“I wouldn’t trade it for the world” he says), three Letina fermenters, and some serving tanks. He also serves pizza and panini’s. I was going to phone him the other night but he was busy calling out Bingo at his brewery, which is very popular. He likes doing it. Dan is a happy man. I see Sonia, his wife and partner’s posts on Facebook all the time. They are always doing something fun, and only some of those things involve the brewery.

He found a building for sale for about $120,000. It was bank owned. He offered half that and they refused. Then he started sending them letters saying what was wrong with the building. I guess they got tired of his letters because they relented and sold it to him at his offered price. He paid the building off in less than two years and is debt free. The build-out and equipment he say’s cost about $130,000. And of course, he also owns the building too, so any improvements he made to the space, it’s for his own property.

This is my point. Dan and Sonia were very smart in building Eagle Monk. It’s a basic little brewpub serving his local community. Every town needs a watering-hole/pub, and Eagle Monk fits that. They aren’t trying to conquer the world. They simply want to make a decent living, make great beers, and enjoy their life. They have been successful on all counts.

There are plenty of simple ways to grow your business. It doesn’t have to involve things that increase sales. It can be new and interesting beers, new menu items, or maybe just hosting Bingo.

Growth maybe doesn’t have to come from expanding your current brewery. It could come from opening a tap house across town, thereby giving your managers a chance to grow. It could just as well come from paying off all your creditors so you have zero debt. That way you optimize what you have before expansion. The bottom line is still growing, right?

Life doesn’t have to be about more, more, more. Instead, it could be about better, better, better. I like to think the Buonodono’s have this figured out, and are the teachers now, and I am the student. So I will pass this along to the fellow who reached out about expanding into more packaging.