Is it the Food, or is it the Beer?

Great food, great beer, everything you want and nothing you don't.

I've been thinking a lot about brewpubs lately, and I keep coming back to the same internal debate – about whether the food in a brewpub is more important than the beer, or vice versa. Obviously, the short answer is that they are both highly instrumental to the success of the business, but if we force ourselves to not settle for the short answer, and weigh competing factors in order to arrive at a non-lawyer-like decision, which one is more important?

The first thing that pops into my head is that a brewpub, by definition, is a restaurant first, and that it makes and serves its own beer on site. This is easy to digest until you apply the reverse of what this statement is actually saying, which is that a brewpub is NOT a brewery first, that just happens to make and sell food on site. I suppose you could draw up a business model that operates that way, but the traditional, and proven to be effective, model is that a brewpub is a restaurant – not a brewery.

Here's to the chef, brewer and photographer!

If that is true, then it stands to reason that the menu and the quality of the food on that menu must be more important to the success of the operation than the beer selection and quality of the beers on that selection. After all, if you’re running a restaurant, your competitors are other restaurants, and your customers are hungry restaurant patrons who have (depending on the market) hundreds of other restaurants to choose from. You can’t plan on continued success if your brewpub is serving the same food options as the 10 other restaurants located in the same part of town as you, particularly if their food is better than yours.

Certainly, the beer plays a factor. Most people in this line of work agree that in a market inundated with options like the restaurant industry, businesses that thrive are the ones that set themselves apart from the pack. A brewpub, again by definition, automatically has that “twist” in the fact that they brew beer on site and serve that beer with their food. It is an installed gimmick that is enough to separate a brewpub from the other non-brewpub restaurants in the area, but only to a point, and only if the food is good.

The buzz that is created when a new brewpub opens, particularly around those of us obsessed with beer, will make for an initial surge of interest by the local customers – or in other words, the beer people will be lined up outside your door and hopefully bring some hungry people with them. If the food is good, the beer people and their friends will tell the non-beer people and their friends and you may just have a thriving restaurant on your hands. If the food is not good, or the price isn't right, you’ll be left with a bunch of beer people hanging round drinking, but not eating. The place will most likely fail.

People love to see the tanks at a brewpub... and why not? They're cool looking!

Now, here’s where I’m going to shift gears. That buzz and initial surge of interest is exactly why you cannot place all the emphasis on the food while ignoring the beer. Remember what I said about why a brewpub works. When someone decides, whether by forethought or impulsive decision, that they are going to go out for dinner, something will cause them to choose one restaurant from amongst the multitude of options. Food quality, food options, price, location and atmosphere are certainly factors. Beer is too, particularly among those in the ever growing craft beer drinking segment of America. Those beer people will line up on opening day to come drink beer at the newest craft brewery in their local market, but if your beer is just “meh,” they will stop coming. And the gimmick that separates your restaurant from the rest is gone. Now you’re just a restaurant like all the others, and you've lost your advantage. Not only that, you’re now paying for a brewery that is not making money, and you’re likely to fail.

I may or may not be guilty of
tweeting pictures of beer - follow
me on twitter @SousBrewer

Not to mention the free public relations and marketing that the beer community will do for you if your beer is good. A lesser known feature of the growing American craft beer movement is the social media aspect of it. Beer people are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc… all the time. They blog about beer (obviously). They engage in their communities with brewers and fellow beer people. They are at beer festivals, they have online forums and they have national associations and websites. They have national competitions and conventions. My point is, if your brewpub makes great beer, you will tap into that social network without even trying, and you’ll get to the point where your brewpub becomes a destination amongst beer people all over the country. So that when a beer person from San Diego, California has to travel to Washington, D.C. for business, they will be planning out opportunities to go drink local craft beer in the D.C. area, and through the social media network, they’ll be pointed at your restaurant.

So which one is more critical… food or beer? I think from a business standpoint, food is probably more important. After all, your competitors are not other breweries… your competitors are other restaurants. If your beer is great, the other breweries will help you succeed. If your food is great, the other restaurants will change their ways in order to better compete or suffer a loss of business. And if you can manage to do both well, I think there is a high probability you’ll succeed.

Honestly, at the risk of sounding like a lawyer, I think it depends on who you feel your customers are and how much you value the different demographics of people who you serve. It’s important to target both people looking for good beer and people who want a place to eat good food. Sometimes, they are the same person, but often, it will be hard to reconcile them, and perhaps not even necessary. If you recognize that you are catering to two different segments of the population, and try to court both of them effectively, you’ll have a reputation amongst both groups and be more likely to turn tables and pint glasses.

*** Blogger’s Note: The Sous Brewer is not a restaurateur, nor does he have any formal business or hospitality training. He is merely a beer nerd who thinks he knows everything, admits that he probably doesn't, and surrounds himself with people who actually do. If you’re looking to open a brewpub, please DO NOT consider this source as being authoritative in any way, shape or form. Feel free to use these thoughts of mine to inspire your own creative juices, but please seek the guidance of people who know about these sorts of things before opening your brewpub. ***

Just imagine doing this kind of business...

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!