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Can wine work on quick-service menus? More restaurants are finding that, in fact, it can.<\/p>\n
There is a scene in \u201cSideways,\u201d the 2004 film about an oenophile and his friend road tripping through California\u2019s wine country, where the protagonist, Miles, visits a fast-food restaurant. Having recently suffered humiliations including the rejection of his novel and advances toward the woman he loves, Miles, played by Paul Giamatti, unceremoniously drinks his prized 1961 Ch\u00e2teau Cheval Blanc from a plastic foam cup over a burger and onion rings.<\/p>\n
Had he chosen the establishment more carefully, Miles could have saved his precious bottle for the end of the movie\u2014when his love is indeed requited\u2014and still got a quality buzz. A number of quick-serves, the latest of which is Vancouver, Washington-based Burgerville, have taken a page out of fine dining\u2019s playbook and put wine on the menu.<\/p>\n
A study conducted last spring by Adult Beverage Insights Group, a branch of market research firm Technomic, found 40 quick-service restaurants that serve wine, out of 66 total that sold at least some type of alcohol. Louie Cano, senior broker and consultant for Liquor License Specialists, which helps clients buy and sell liquor licenses nationwide, could not provide specific numbers but says he has noticed an increase in limited-service establishments serving alcohol, including wine.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to see why: Adult per capita and overall table wine consumption in the U.S. reached a record high in 2008, according to a consumer tracking study conducted by the Wine Market Council (WMC). Last year also marked the 15th straight year of gains in total wine sales. Because of recent growth in the market, the WMC expects sales to hold steady through the recession, and Millennials\u2019 emerging affinity for wine bodes well for future consumption.<\/p>\n
Randy Caparoso, a restaurant wine consultant and freelance wine journalist, says as much as 12 to 15 percent of a quick serves\u2019 customer base might order wine with their meals, and bottles can be marked up 50 percent or more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s nothing to sneeze at; that\u2019s a profit center,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Serving wine can also be a competitive advantage. It can serve as a point of differentiation from other quick-serves and fuel trade-down from full service.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to grab that customer who is now thinking twice about going to a [full-service] restaurant and dumping $70 to $80 for a meal and wine,\u201d says Derek Cowling, co-owner of O\u2019Brothers, a quick-service burger concept he founded with brother Craig in San Diego earlier this year. O\u2019Brothers has an upscale interior, an organic menu, and wines by the glass from around $7.50 to $8.75. Cowling hopes the $17 to $18 average price for a burger, salad, and glass of wine will bring in customers from the surrounding shopping center and three performing arts theaters within a mile\u2019s walk. Happy hour specials, such as $5 glasses of wine and $5 plates of sliders and fries, beginning at 3:30 p.m. are meant to help drive traffic during the slow mid-afternoon daypart.<\/p>\n
In addition to creating profit in its own right, wine offers other, less-direct advantages, for restaurants.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt eliminates the veto factor,\u201d says Jeff Weinstein, CEO of The Counter, a 20-unit burger concept that has offered beer and wine since it opened in 2003. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to not come to The Counter because we don\u2019t serve beer and wine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wine can also elevate an establishment\u2019s image by boosting its value perception.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden, you\u2019re more of a nice restaurant,\u201d says Vaughan Lazar, president and co-founder of 20-unit organic pizza chain Pizza Fusion. \u201cYou may not want to take a date to a typical quick-service restaurant, but you might take them to Pizza Fusion because it has wine.\u201d<\/p>\n
In white-tablecloth restaurants, sommeliers carefully choose wines to enhance the cuisine, but pairings aren\u2019t just for fancy fare. Wine expert Natalie MacLean says wine can bring out the flavor of a burger just as it can for a steak.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no better way to make a meal like that even more delicious than with a glass of wine,\u201d she says. \u201cThe pairings are the same as they would be with fancy food.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jeff Harvey, president and CEO of 39-unit Burgerville, says the decision to experiment with beer and wine in its Salmon Creek test location in Vancouver, Washington, is less about adding profits from the drinks and more about enhancing the chain\u2019s food. Coming on the heels of an expanded seasonal gourmet-offerings menu, wine service at the Salmon Creek store is all about the pairings. The chain worked with a sommelier to choose alcohol offerings that complement its food and fit with its local, sustainable ethos. The staff was trained on pairings, and cards offer simple descriptions of the wines and suggest menu matches.<\/p>\n
After a three- to six-month testing period, which began in May, beer and wine service could be expanded to other Burgerville locations, but Harvey is quick to stress that alcohol is not likely to become available systemwide.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just won\u2019t work in some restaurants,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Likewise, wine service won\u2019t work for every chain, says Janeen Olsen, professor of wine marketing at Sonoma State University.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you really have to know who your customer is and whether you have a match with who is drinking wine,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Despite the rising rate of per capita wine consumption, it\u2019s still more popular on the East and West coasts and in urban areas, Olsen says, and wine drinkers tend to have higher incomes and better education than the general population. Research also shows that the drink is associated with relaxation and socialization, so a quick-serve with high customer turnover might not be a great fit for wine service.<\/p>\n
While Weinstein says alcohol accounts for about 10 percent of sales at The Counter and Cowling hopes O\u2019Brothers will eventually see alcohol bring in 25 to 30 percent of sales, Lazar says wine adds only about 4 to 8 percent of sales at Pizza Fusion. Most quick-serves, says Technomic\u2019s David Henkes, should realistically expect only 1 to 3 percent of sales to come from alcohol, and beer is still more popular than wine.<\/p>\n
Moreover, offering alcohol of any kind creates a number of hassles and headaches, not the least of which is the initial step of acquiring the proper license. The process and fees vary greatly from state to state and even city to city, but a restaurant seeking to serve wine typically doesn\u2019t have to obtain a full liquor license. In most cases, a limited beer and wine license will do.<\/p>\n
To obtain one, the business has to file an application with the state, pay a fee that can range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, and then wait\u2014usually about three months. The restaurant will also have to comply with an inspection, zoning laws, and background checks. Neighbors, too, will have to be notified and offered the opportunity to comment. As Burgerville found out, some of them might not be happy. The state liquor control board received two letters from people opposing the Salmon Creek location\u2019s liquor license, and Harvey says the chain, too, heard some negative feedback.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe majority response was excitement, but there are those who haven\u2019t been as warm to the idea,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no guarantee a license will be awarded. In some states, such as New Jersey, where the full-version is required, liquor licenses are notoriously difficult and expensive to come by. A $400,000 price tag prohibited the Pizza Fusion location in Ridgewood, New Jersey, from getting one, and the restaurant remains the only one in the chain that doesn\u2019t serve alcohol.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a difficult pill to swallow at first,\u201d Lazar says. \u201cIn a restaurant of that size, that would have been around 8 percent of sales we could have added to their top line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if a restaurant does get a license, there are liquor laws to comply with and liability to consider. Those that serve alcohol of any kind are likely to see higher insurance premiums. On-premise alcohol can also affect hiring, as servers must be at least 18 years of age and in some cases obtain special handling licenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe legalities of serving alcohol vary from location to location, so you really have to understand what the laws are,\u201d Olsen says. \u201cAs is true for any type of food establishment, quick-service restaurant employees must have proper training concerning alcohol, as well as adequate supervision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Theft can be an issue, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou trust that you have a certain type of staff, but we know in this business that\u2019s not always the case,\u201d Lazar says.<\/p>\n
To keep employees from helping themselves to the wine, restaurants rely on security cameras, diligent inventory checks, locked storage, eagle-eyed management, and zero-tolerance policies regarding theft.<\/p>\n
Still, some quick-serves are willing to accept the risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter what you\u2019re doing, there are always liability issues,\u201d says Staci Raymond, operations manager for Taylor\u2019s Automatic Refresher, a three-unit, drive-in-style concept that offers 11 wines by the glass and 15 varieties by the bottle. \u201cWe believe it\u2019s worth the trouble.\u201d
\nThe Perfect Match<\/p>\n
Here are some suggested pairings from the Wine & Food Matcher widget on expert Natalie MacLean\u2019s Web site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Can wine work on quick-service menus? More restaurants are finding that, in fact, it can. There is a scene in \u201cSideways,\u201d the 2004 film about an oenophile and his friend road tripping through California\u2019s wine country, where the protagonist, Miles, visits a fast-food restaurant. Having recently suffered humiliations including the rejection of his novel and advances toward the woman he loves, Miles, played by Paul Giamatti, unceremoniously drinks his prized 1961 Ch\u00e2teau Cheval Blanc from a plastic foam cup over a burger and onion rings. Had he chosen the establishment more carefully, Miles could have saved his precious bottle for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,110,23,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-wine-pairing","category-pizza-and-wine","category-technology-wine","category-wine-articles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13478,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions\/13478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}