Food For Thought

This week I was interviewed by the web site Start A Brewery, and in the interview I listed 5 things I thought were the path to opening a nice small neighborhood brewpub. #3 on the list was all about food, and I thought I would do a little deeper dive into it here.

When you operate a tasting room brewery, you are a brewery first, and you may also sell food from food trucks, or have your own light snacks that you offer. But if you are a brewpub, or plan to open a brewpub, you must realize that first you are a restaurant. This is because the majority of your sales will most likely come from food.

This is not a bad thing. If it’s just a tasting room, your customers may have one or even two pints, but then want to go somewhere else to eat. If you are a brewpub, it’s most likely where your customers have chosen to spend a good part of their evening. This means they are still having those couple of pints, but they are also having a full meal, which greatly increases your income per customer. In a brewpub they will be comfortable bringing their kids along too. Oh I could bring up horror stories about that!

So if you are essentially a restaurant that sells your own beer, you would be wise to choose a menu that can actually make money. This depends on your food mix and the types of food you serve.

As a great brewpub, beer should make up at least 25 up to 40% of your sales. As a brewpub, you aren’t packaging so your beer simply goes from the tap to the glass and you receive full retail value for that. The cost of that beer (and I’m talking raw costs - grain, hops & yeast) is going to be around .10 cents on the dollar or less. That’s a huge profit margin!

But still, even after you factor in the other things you sell like wine, spirits, merchandise, your food sales could easily be more than 50% of your sales. What I am saying is choose a menu that has less food cost. Consider this, if you have a steak and seafood menu, that will have a food cost of around 35 - 40%. If .40 cents on the dollar covers what is on the plate, it leaves less money left over to cover labor, rent, utilities and the like.

I like pizzerias not only because I am as passionate about great pizza as I am about beer, but also pizza has a very low food cost. Typically about 21%, though in these hyper inflated times about 25%. That’s 15% less than the steak and seafood place. That might not seem like a lot, but if you extrapolate it out, it’s scary money. Say you do $500,000 in food sales per year. That equals an extra $75,000 to the bottom line.

Not only that, but everyone likes pizza, kids too. You don’t even have to charge a whole lot to make your margins. For steak and seafood, you have to charge a lot just to hit that 35 to 40% cost. And at those prices, your customers may think twice about how often they frequent your place.

Of course not just pizza. Mexican food is great too. I especially like street tacos. They have a great food cost and low staffing requirements. Even a menu of burgers and salads can be alright. Burgers will have a higher food cost than pizza, but not by much. Again, a simple menu like In ‘n Out Burger uses is pretty simple to staff with employees.

The bottom line here is if you don’t know a lot about restaurants, make your menu as simple as possible; maybe even five items to start. Once you have your feet under you, then you can add items. But don’t do everything your customers ask you to do. They will want chicken wings, rice veggie bowls (excellent food cost item), smoked salmon salad, etc. Then you will wind up with a huge menu that is difficult to prep for and these items that please a few customers don’t sell to everybody else. Instead, pick a menu theme and stick to it. You will be good at it and people will know you for it.

It’s my opinion that while beer and food parings are fine, most people want a simple menu that they can share with their friends and family that is good and affordable and goes well with their pint of beer. Anyway, that’s the type of brewpub I like to go to.