Brewpub: Seriously Considered

Recently, I informed all of you that I'm not planning to complete my PhD. In that same post, I noted that I had a number of wildly divergent plans running through my head as to what I might do with my life when I finish up at CU. One of those ideas, which has been milling about my head and refusing to leave ever since I first started questioning my commitment to academia last spring, is opening a brewpub.

This sounds like a flight of fancy. Future Ted Mosby was probably right in claiming that "We should open a bar" is a sentence that every American man will say at some point in his life, but this isn't something that I just randomly came upon. This is something that I've thought about pretty intently for awhile -- if only because the thought just won't leave me alone. So, I'm going to publicly run through some of the reasons I'm stuck on this and the overarching plans I would bring to the table to try and make it work.

First thing's first: part of my problem with sticking with computer science is that it's just something I don't enjoy doing much of the time. The part that I enjoy -- designing systems -- is too passive and I'm easily distracted from it. The active part, coding itself, is plagued by the ease of incidental errors that have nothing to do with executing my idea and which cripple my motivation.

There aren't a lot of things that I actually can do for hours on end without starting to hate myself a little bit. Historically, cooking is one of those things. Obviously, spending 8 hours in a day making food for people on a couple of isolated occasions is not the same as working in a kitchen for 10-12 hours a day 5-6 days a week. I would need to get real kitchen experience before I could commit to this sort of plan. But that's okay, because that leads me to another point.

This isn't something that I would just run out and do. This is something that's 5-10 years down the pipeline. I would need experience. I would need savings. I would need a business plan and a reasonable menu of recipes I can consistently recreate to within a small margin of variability. I would need people who know the brewing side of things, and I would need business expertise. These last two are things that rest completely outside my own experience and even my specific interest (though, being fundamentally fascinated by just about everything, I would certainly be invested in these sides of the undertaking).

Again, though, this isn't a huge problem. Why? Because I keep on running into other people who legitimately seem to share this dream, and maybe we just need a support group to rally ourselves to make a go of it. I know at least three people who would love to brew for a living and a couple more who would gladly help manage the kitchen. Business expertise isn't there yet, but we would have time to develop it or to find somebody to help us out. We just need to start taking the idea seriously instead of talking about it as some unrealistic ideal.

So, then, what would my plan be for this awesome-est place where everybody would know my name? Read on, if you dare.

It makes sense to start with what I'd be chiefly responsible for bringing to the table: the general idea of the menu. Stick to simple food. It should be possible to eat 75% of the menu with your hands, with the remainder being split between heavy comfort food and some lighter salad sorts of options. I've had the dubious honor of spending a fair amount of time in Ogden, UT recently, and I've been to two brewpubs there that attempt to make up for the watery 4.5% ABV beer with higher end food. It doesn't work. Even though the food wasn't bad, it just felt out of place and overpriced.

We mostly want foods that are comfortable. A well made burger and fries are a necessity, as are wings. Any brewpub worth its salt will also obviously serve fish and chips with a batter made from a house beer. In order to control costs and prep time, we're going to need to be able to create a diversity of recipes from a number of relatively stock ingredients. That's going to limit stylistic diversity, but that's okay. We can be playful and offer up new ways to eat old flavors. If I'm running things, this will probably mean a lot of southwestern foods, like the shawarma al pastor or huevos rancheros burger recipes I've been working on.

There will also be a heavily seasonal rotation of soups. We will always have a vegan as well as an omnivorous soup options and a chili. I would ideally feature a different chili every day with soups likely rotating less frequently. I say this because 90% of the chili recipes I've made share 90% of their ingredients. It would incur minimal overhead to rotate daily as most of the differing 10% of ingredients have long shelf lives. How often we could rotate soups would depend on which soups we have on the menu and how much overlap there is.

Second up is atmosphere. I'm calling this a pub. Not a bar, not a club. I like places that are chill. So for now, since this is my fantasy, this is going to be a chill place. No speaker system pumping music in at unnecessary volumes, interior organized for minimal noise bleed. Maybe this means segregation into many rooms, maybe this means having giant wooden booths that absorb a lot of sound. I don't know, but I want to be able to hear the people at my table, even when the place is busy. I want to have space for people to sit by themselves and not feel awkward. I want maybe a small library of books and boardgames that people can borrow. If we're in a cold climate, I want couches and fireplaces, dammit!

Speaking of climate, I have no clue where this is going to be. We need a place where people are going to be willing to pay the slightly higher price for what is effectively pico-scale brewing. This likely means someplace with a liberal/possibly academic bent, but at the same time, we don't want to go someplace where the market is nearing saturation or where the cost of business is going to be unreasonable. Personally, I adore the Midwest, and if I could make this happen in Minneapolis or Chicago, I couldn't be happier.

Hours are the next thing to look at. I imagine that the kitchen would offer a full menu from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch and then from 4-10 p.m. for dinner. The bar and a limited menu of soups and certain appetizers would be open for full business hours while available. Obviously, long days. If a kitchen opens at 11 a.m., I would expect to be there by 8 at the latest to get mis en place ready and start prepping longer cooking items that will be used throughout the day (roasted meats, soups, etc.). If doors close at 2 a.m., then you couldn't expect to be gone until at least 3.

I want to have a family. I want to see my family. Running a bar/restaurant, as you can see, is a good way to keep that from happening. That's part of the benefit of having a number of people on board at the top level, though. We'd each get a smaller cut of profits, but it would be easier to rotate and provide one another time off (so long as we have well defined policies). People could take the shifts that best fit their own productivity and sleep habits, and, in time, we could hire competent youngsters to help manage the day-to-day. The first year or more would be killer, though.

That's why we need a Sabbath. Not open at all on Sundays. Pick another day of the week to not serve lunch and wait to open at 4 when the kitchen opens for dinner. Yeah, maybe people wouldn't love it, but we've got to take care of ourselves. I would also plan to make up for the lack of lunch by doing a simple brunch buffet once weekly. We could serve a selection of low maintenance egg dishes (quiches and frittatas), fresh fruit, and muffins/pastries from some local partner. Maybe do Waffle stations while we're at it. Saturday would be an obvious choice for this, but I somehow like the idea of a Thursday brunch. Keep it low key, make it a business friendly thing.

Speaking of Sabbath, I'm a Christian. Many of the people with whom I've talked about this are Christians. As such, we need to intentionally work to benefit our community. I say we tithe from our profits. Not to the church (save that for personal giving), but to local organizations. Support the arts in our schools, give to homeless outreach. Look at what else the people we're serving need and help meet it. Instead of a direct tithe, we could allow charitable organizations to select a dish to sponsor for a time. We would advertise that profits from that menu item (and some smaller percentage of general profits) go to the organization. Again, how often this would rotate is something to do research on, but it seems like a good potential way to actively give back.

I also say we build as many partnerships with other local companies as we can. Again, buy our bread (and brunch pastries) from local bakers. Stock our library from a local bookstore (if they even exist). Do cross promotions, offering savings to customers who patron our friends and have them do the same -- assuming this is legal. Sometimes the law is stupid. We could also bring in live music if we actually have a usable space for it (I've been to too many bars that try to cram musicians into awkward performing spaces just to say they have live music) or showcase local artists, though that starts to border on the pretentious end of things.

Perhaps the most important thing, since this is a brewpub, after all, is the beer. Unfortunately, I know little about brewing, so I'd leave that to others, but it's worth pointing out the obvious. We need a variety of regular taps covering broad styles (something dark, something hoppy, something smooth, maybe a sour beer and/or a regular cider) and several seasonal taps. I haven't even been drinking beer for a year, so, again, I'm not the best person to trust here for details, but that's why I'm not in this alone.

I'm saving nearly $1000 a month right now as a "poor, underpaid" grad student. I'm serious enough about this that I'm going to start carefully looking at what I have and see what I can put into medium term investments for the next 5-10 years with the intent of using it to get this going once I've had time to work out a legitimate plan. I know that some of you seem serious about this, too. If you are, let me know. Maybe we can start talking in more detail. Maybe you can start saving as well and we can reduce the debt we'll incur getting this thing off the ground. A lot could happen and change before we get a shot, but, hey, at least we'll focus on something that makes us happy and improve our finances!