Articles

This week we've got short interview clips with two NYC bar owners that describe two different aspects of the craft beer customer pool. Keep on reading to learn more about their points of view.

Gerard Leary has built a loyal group of regulars at two very different concepts in two very different parts of NYC.

In one corner there's One Mile House, an awesome (but now closed) bar/restaurant with a ton of top-level taps in bustling downtown Manhattan. On the other hand is his current venture, a small neighborhood spot in Sunnyside, Queens called Sweet Avenue.

The location and clientele of the two couldn't be more different, but he built a loyal following at each. What's his secret for finding and keeping these folks coming in?

For Gerard it's mostly about you and your space: you need to foster a community, meaning you need an ecosystem where customers feel welcome and comfortable.

Here are some of the strategies he uses to keep his finely-tuned ecosystem balanced and thriving at Sweet Avenue:

Gerard Leary, owner of Sweet Avenue in Sunnyside, Queens, has been in the bar and restaurant business since the beginning of Yelp. At this point has seen it all:

• Yelp reviews left for his business that were clearly about a different restaurant.
• When told there was a wait for a table, people have threatened to leave him a bad Yelp review if they weren't seated immediately.
• And, of course, Yelp has relentlessly tried to contact him in myriad ways to try and get him to pay to claim and manage his business listings.

No doubt this same stuff is happening to all bars and restaurants. So what do you do about it? Gerard has come to a simple, elegant solution: ignore it. All of it. Spend your time on other aspects of your business.

Here are some key takeaways from our conversation about Yelp:

This week's topic is a bit of a quick hitter (the interview clip is only like 3 mins long), but it's a bigger concept: being comfortable in the uncomfortable.

The broader idea has come up in a lot of the interviews we've done. Sometimes folks say it's key to have a "pivot" mentality. Others said "you just do what you need to do."

But no matter how it's framed, it seems every person we talk to stresses how important it is—especially post-pandemic—to be able to functionally deal with stuff just not going the way you expect or the way you'd prefer.

Especially in our industry.

Ben Wiley is an owner of some of the best bars in Brooklyn, NY, like Bar Great Harry and Glorietta Baldy among others.

He's had six different landlords in six different NYC neighborhoods, ranging from mom and pop operations to corporate LLCs.

But despite the different neighborhoods and the different landlords, Ben and his partners hold one thing constant: treat your landlord relationship like gold, and that means treat it professionally.

Ben counts this as a first principle of his business philosophy. Here's more on how he does it, why he does it, and how it's beneficial to him and his partners:

Josh Hurst, industry veteran and Director of Operations and Hospitality for Pies & Pints, Josh Hurts has dealt with a ton of distributors in his time—with 13 locations in six different states he's put in the time to hone in on a few key strategies for effectively managing distributor relationships.

Read on and check out the interview clips to learn Josh's strategies.

Darian Everding manages London Underground, a craft beer and whisk(e)y bar in Ames, IA.

Post-pandemic the London Underground has invested in staff systems to make sure everything runs smoothly—stuff like staff messaging apps, learning/training policies, and checklists.

That last one has been huge. Darian has created a robust checklist system that allows London Underground's staff to be more accountable to one another and the business as a whole, and it's also allowed them to be less frantic around shift changes, which has made a very big difference.

Read on to learn how Darian thinks about checklists and to download opening and closing checklist templates!

Kyle Sherrer is the owner of Backpack Brands of Newburgh, NY, which puts out three craft brands:

• Graft Cider, a craft cider that innovates on flavors. Think cutting edge craft beer, but for cider.
• Hudson North Cider, a hazy dry cider brand that's lower in sugar than their competitors (like Austin Eastciders, for example).
• Ritual Hard Kombucha, a west-coast style hard kombucha made in NY.

We recently sat down and spoke with Kyle about a range of topics:

• How each of his brands came to be
• The swings and misses he's faced along the way
• Where he sees the non-beer craft market—and really the entire craft market—headed in the next few years as preferences change and mature.

Ben Wiley is an owner of some of the best bars in Brooklyn, NY, like Bar Great Harry and Glorietta Baldy among others.

But it's not like he just had multiple bars when he started his career (in fact, he was trained in the culinary world). He started with one bar and grew his empire from there.

In the multiple openings he's done since then, he's developed a tactical playbook for when and how to open a new place—from deciding where to look to what to do with the space once it's yours. Here are the takeaways:

We recently talked with Josh Hurst of Pies & Pints about how he knows what beer trends are coming before they arrive.

Here's how he figures it out: