Kids Drinking (Root)Beer and other Family Friendly Offerings

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Transcript

hello and welcome back to the Augustine numbering podcast today we are talking about kids drinking the beer that is and other family friendly offer offerings there’s been over the last for five years real modern uptick in the number of breweries out there and brewpubs more specifically that are reaching out to a family demographic in terms of their brewpub and they’re seeing a lot of bus success with it it is also something that we are looking at it as a a brewery we want to appeal to guests the singles but we see a very big advantage to also appealing to families that have kids because if you look at the general demographic of the craft beer drinker they’re not the 2425-year-old those individuals are drinking a lot of the PVR and the other, hipster drinks but they don’t really fully in some cases at least in other cases are very sophisticated but in some cases the not that sophisticated about their drinking they just think they are in so targeting the families has a lot of advantages it’s really, started with a lot of places that that are out there are at least an increasing number of places that go ahead and they make their house root beer which for a brewery and the equipment that a brewery has manufacturing are repairs actually really quite simple and you can make a very good root beer with considerably low effort and very very high margins in fact the margins and that the expense of it is typically so low that some places don’t even charge for the kids beers it and that winds up attracting back repeat business so you as we sort of got to and alluded to a bit in the first question is why in the world would you target families why would you target kids who can even drink your high-margin beverage and get a really that the reason is very simple kids along with mom tend to drive the buying decision for the beer drinking parents and so other industries have found that this is so very true as well in that they are also trying to cater to and sell to the kids you see it on TV you see it in the stores and you see it in the many restaurants and I can be anything from free drinks for the kids kids meals all the way to know kids and menus and thing you a little coloring sheets which are now those of been around forever practically but in the brewpub world that is kind of expanding into really providing more kid friendly services at a brewpub now this seems like a crazy idea but it in in the modern craft beer era it is fairly new but it’s actually kind of an old idea as the you may know there are Busch Gardens all over the place as well Busch Gardens is in the Florida but died in any case one of the reason why Busch Gardens was set up in the first place was the fact that it was a family-friendly place that was sorta connected to a tasting tent a beer garden and so that allowed for for parents to have fun drinking beers and the kids to go in bright the amusements enjoy the at the games and enjoy the a carnival and so this is something that Anheuser-Busch in the Bush family knew long before the craft beer movement was around that if you can attract the attract something that is fun for the kids and fun for the adults you’ve got a good product there which is one of the things that again all and Augustine oh brewing were looking to incorporate and it is a feature that is being incorporated by many breweries not a whole lot here in the Wichita area but to across the country there are an increasing number of brewpubs there realizing that it’s not enough to just put beer on tap and serve some bar food in order to remain competitive you have to be able to draw a wider audience than that to be able to be a sustainable business model so what’s going on what time many breweries are least increasing number breweries are starting to do which is a tough decision to make because every square foot that you have matters as a brewery and a brewpub and so you don’t want to take too much away but there are an increasing number of breweries and brewpubs and were very likely going to do the same thing that have kids areas with the kid activities games in the things of that nature that mom and dad can Send the kids off to land the they can enjoy them a few minutes to themselves which in this busy world mom and dad don’t get nearly as much time to just enjoy one another’s company is a short I know that that’s the case with myself and my spouse and I am sure that resonates with so many of you out there who have kids whether to one like my wife and I have or six or more like it’s chaotic in a hurry when you have kids I would not trade that for the world but I do appreciate places that have amenities in place that I can steal away a little bit of time with the with my wife so there are drawbacks to having a place like Lake Augustine know where you’re going to have a kids area or many of the other kid friendly locations is that you may find yourself driving away some adults that don’t have kids now I would argue that if the kids drive away adults don’t have kids those adults that you may not want at your establishment anyway and so I’m okay with doing that most families have about four you family for you you get your 2.5 kids things like that and so you have a tendency that you can fill up more seats around the a typical table then you may if a couple is just going out to eat and so that sort of my my offset said to that drawback because it really is about filling seats in as many seats as possible in a restaurant environment you would love to be able to say you’ve got every seat filled at all times but the reality is even if you’ve got a packed house you might not be utilizing every single seat in your house so if you can fill up some additional seats by having the larger groups that’s always a plus in terms of driving revenue another drawback though it as I alluded to before is that kids areas even if it’s small and I you know maybe eight by 8 ft.² area was here is a taking away from valuable seating you know in terms of craft beer you can the real economy estimate that you will have about $1000 of revenue per seat per month or at least that’s really the goal to drive through on a casual service restaurant and so if you’re missing seats well it’s in a sense driving down your numbers and so it’s a tough trade-off at the outset but you have to balance that with the fact that you may be picking up clients and and customers that may well be considerably more loyal than your typical craft beer fans because they can’t get around to travel quite is that the quiz much as their single friends and things like that because I have the kids and tell so the kids area shouldn’t be looked at as a cost that should be really looked at as a benefit in a the last drawback that I can see is that you have a rough language sometimes in bars and I can drive the families away so you have to be kinda careful about that as well so I yell I’m not the flip side pros families tend to want to eat fast and get on their way the kids are only to put up with sitting in one place for so long as for your your turnover can be higher by catering to a family environment as I mentioned before you also have a situation where if it’s a you know family for four people sit around a square table quite nicely and a lot better than just two people coming into your restaurant so you’re able to use your seating better and then finally you can upsell a little easier by a having your servers well trained to up sell to the kids to get the kids and yes yes yes I won that ice cream or whatever at the end of the Emile mom and dad have a tougher time saying no at that point so thanks a lot for listening and if you have any other questions feel free to reach out thanks