El Cajon Brewing Company, Chapter 11

If the brewing equipment is in good shape, why would it need to be discounted very much? There is plenty of demand for brewing equipment right now.

The press release says, "The City of El Cajon and the property owner will now be working
together to locate a replacement brewing company/restaurant business, as soon as possible." That would imply that any new brewer coming in would start with a clean slate and not be encumbered by any of Meadows' obligations (back rent, suppliers, employees, etc).

 

First of all, the press release meaningless. "It is expected that a new tenant will assume the City’s outstanding loan." Yeah, and people in hell want ice water. The City claims it is fully secure and protected. They are owed about $601,000. Would you agree to pay $601,000 for equipment that was worth $250,000 to $300,000?

The new owner might be able to avoid much of Meadows' obligations, but they still need to work a deal with the City and the landlord. That also means that the City and landlord need to be reasonable.

 

I'd have to agree with Negative Nancy here...

If somebody wants the equipment they can buy it for cheaper than the building(which isn't even part of the sale or debt owed to the city) and move it elsewhere. A lot of breweries started off in industrial complexes. The restaurant might be nice but I can think of a number of fantastic breweries in SD and elsewhere in the country that fail to offer a restaurant on the premises or food from a vendor. The food truck has really helped out these kitchenless places because the last thing I want when I've had a few is to have to go elsewhere for food.

But back on topic. The equipment is quality, the location from what I've heard is subpar and the layout is less than optimal. The only thing worthwhile to many would be the equipment. I don't know if the city is hurting for money, but they could either wait for somebody to buy it all as a package deal or take what they can get and write off the rest. The taxpayers won't be happy either way but they have to decide if it is more worthwhile to them for the shit to gather dust, or refuse genuine offers on the brewing equipment in the hopes that somebody wants the whole thing even though they may have to wait for some time for the right person to come along. Running a brewpub may be even more difficult than a brewery. If the brewery sucks you're likely to fail. If you make good beer but the food sucks then the beer will make you money while your restaurant eats your profits(stealing from peter to pay paul but this is fixable if you want to succeed), if your beer sucks and your food is shit hot you won't make any money off of your expensive brewing system, and if both of them suck then you'll go out of business as word spreads that you have nothing to offer. Offering up some taps to outsiders is a bold move but awesome beer brewed by other people won't pay for the brewing system or the restaurant when you're running it into the ground. You'd be better off opening a tap house to reduce your overhead and be able to have a profitable business. It isn't rocket science and in a free market economy people are looking for what gives them the most bang for their buck.

 

Hey now...people pay me to think in terms of the worst case scenario...and then hire me to get them out it.

It seems to me that they could also take a few lessons from Stone Brewing. You can get a Stone IPA and most local grocery stores and even at Rubios. I also know that they had planning to start wholesaling beer to outside restaurants and bars and bottling some of their beer to increase on premise to-go sales. Would it have been enough to make a difference? Maybe a new owner with better lease and restructured debt on the equipment might be able to make it work.

Or maybe the value is just in the equipment.

 

This thread is the most attention this brewery ever got

 

I want your job. People get mad at me for being the wet blanket or voice of reality, or just being an asshole to stupid people. Do you still get paid for that??

 

Because it is cursed.

 

It sounds like you are describing what judges do on "reality" shows...getting paid for being a jerk to stupid people.

I was actually able to do that recently. A guy was in my office recently and was totally disrespecting his wife and interrupting me while I was trying to give him the advice he sought from me. I pulled a total John Taffer and read him the riot act. I made him apologize to his wife before I would agree to to be his attorney. I was full on screaming at the guy. And you know what? He respected me for it and paid me.

 

I work in IT and have to deal with stupid people a lot. Sometimes it gets the best of me and I make them feel stupid for what they asked me or what they did to require my involvement. Poor customer service and it probably was wrong of me to bet a user $20 that their issue was due to them having a typo in the web address without leaving my seat.

 

There's a convention of bankruptcy attorneys coming to San Diego later this month. I was actually going to take some of my colleagues out there to check it out, but that's obviously not going to happen.

Have any of you heard about BNS in Santee? They are opening later this month.

 

No what is BNS?

 

http://www.bnsbrewinganddistilling.com/

 

That's a pretty cool combo. I assume just draft for now? and does anyone know the quality we can expect from these guys?

I'll check back in 5-10 years for the Whisky though

 

http://www.bnsbrewinganddistilling.com/pages/brewery

They will be on Wheatlands Avenue in Santee and you can see the building from the 67.

 

My family mentioned they saw something in the area but I kind of figured it was just Manzanita. My fiances family lives in the area so I'll have to check it out when I come back.

 

omg you guys what would we do without carlstarrett

 

sleeper pick for (pacific) BA of the year?

 

Carl isn't eligible for nominations until he learns to love barrel aged beers and Cantillons!

 

FTFY

 

If you run into your first stupid person of the day at 9p.m. Then they are probably stupid. If you run into a bunch of stupid people during the day then, well you know