Zwanze Day, Hop and Vine any more info?

Not to pile on, but it did seem that The Hop & Vine was shockingly unprepared for the number of attendees...they had some decent structural pieces in place for the event, but the pieces didn't connect so there was no flow (i.e. long waits for food, drinks, the check). This was their first time hosting this event, and here's hoping the management takes our feedback under advisement. Other specific suggestions I would make:

- let people know (A) when the raffle is, and (B) what's being raffled. If this information was available in advance, I didn't see it. Our server didn't know either.

- have more than one person ringing folks up in the bottle shop...when they raffled off the opportunity to purchase 26 individual bottles of Cantillon, the congestion just shifted from the bar half to the bottle shop half.

- this is a very minor beef, but advertising ahead of the event that you have Pliny for sale with no bottle limits, but not mentioning they're $10/each with half going to charity...well, that ain't right.

All that being said, my wife and I had a fantastic time overall, so a big thanks to The Hop & Vine crew!!! The Zwanze was killer, and Cascade Elderberry Crisp was phenomenal! I'm bummed I never got around to the Plum Bretta, and I do agree that the Block 15 offering was sub-par, especially up against the rest of that lineup.

 

The costs of the bottle pours were all averaged together and multiplied by the typical bar markup, not excessively (which, in my experience, is lower here than anywhere I've worked before). 4oz of Mamouche or Lou Pepe would have been 12 otherwise. It brought up the price of the "cheaper" pours, but in the end it was equalized. I thought that was more than fair.

 

What a stupid "event" (IMO).

 

That would make total sense without adding up the math. So, you're telling me that your markup on a bottle should be about 200%? This is assuming the cost of a Cantillon bottle of Lou Pepe or Mamouche runs you about $28 - $30 (and I'm guessing it's less than that because the last bottle of Mamouche I bought, which was only a few months ago, was 31). Even if you're charging 7 per 4 oz pour, and assuming 6 pours per 25.4mL bottle, that's $42 per expensive bottle, about a 50% markup. This is not even getting to the cost for the less expensive Cantillons. (Or the cost of the draft list for that matter.)

You have every right to charge what you want, but I absolutely disagree that this was meant to be a situation for you to make a hefty sum in the morning, but hell, you saw the opportunity and took it. It's good business. (And if you didn't make a hefty sum, I'd be shocked. 150 people buying 7 dollar pours?) Honestly, I would have been much more impressed with straight up honesty, here. I don't blame places that jack up the prices for beer that everyone HAS to have - I don't have to purchase what I think is overpriced, but there are a lot of people who will (and did. No one 'liked' my post about Zwanze, so they clearly don't care). But don't rationalize this as doing us all a favor. The PIB does that and it is absolutely irritating and disingenuous.

 

Huh, I didn't pick up the diacetyl but I didn't get a whole glass, just had a sip off my friend's. It was well received at my table FWIW.

 

I can't follow what you're trying to say here. You might need to spell it out a little more and I can't figure out exactly what math you are "adding up".

However, let me point out that charging 2-3 times retail for wine by the glass is completely normal, so on the surface you seem to be making the same tired argument that beer ought to be priced differently from wine. (And then we wonder why restaurants with extensive wine lists offer 3 mediocre beers.)

 

What an "insightful" comment.

I thought they handled the event reasonably well. We showed up early enough to get a table inside and our server made sure that we always had drinks and food. On the other hand, the line at the bar to get drinks was ridiculous and they wasted about 20 minutes after letting everyone in while they opened bottles behind the bar - something that should have been done before they opened.

 

I'm pointing out that charging 42 dollars a bottle on Mamouche/Lou Pepe is still having your cake and eating it too, so it's no defense to jack up the prices of the $20 dollar bottles and say you're saving us from a 72 dollar bottle of Mamouche/Lou Pepe. I should have spelled that out in more detail, but I was pretty frustrated. Edit: So yes, I believe the pricing structure should be different than wine, but as you mentioned, it's a tired argument, and it wasn't really the thrust of my point which was more the below:

I find this kind of upcharging to be pretty much the opposite of the spirit of Zwanze Day, considering the reason for the day in the first place was Ebay auctioning, but that's a different argument.

 

The standard markup at any beer place I've worked previously is 300% of cost. That's pretty much the same across the board w/ wine, food, etc, because that's the profit margin that allows businesses to exist. It's not fair to compare retail, to-go prices with in-the-bar prices because it's stilted and ignorant to how bars actually work. At the H&V, and a few other places I've seen in Portland (though certainly not all, I'm sure we've all spied the $100 Cantillon bottles around), the markup is around 250% (there's always rounding, slightly up or down). Typically, when you're talking about markup, you're talking draft, where the price is set for the largest portion and the profit margin increases with smaller and smaller pour options. That was not the case here as we priced strictly from the 4oz pour. The average price of all 8 cases of Cantillon was $98. We figured 6 pours per bottle, that's 36 servings a case. $98/36x2.5=$6.8 per pour. I think rounding to from $6.80 to $7 is completely reasonable, as is the beer markup in general. We chose to go with one flat price to make it easier on everyone without 8 additional prices bouncing around the obvious chaos of having 100 people enter any establishment at the same time.

The ironic thing in this discussion is that this system stood to benefit people like you the absolute most, as you know which bottles cost more and, therefore, could exploit the system's cheaper prices on pours that should have been far more costly. And you ignored the ones that were "overpriced". So you won, right? You probably saved $20 of what could have been charged you (if you had still chosen the pepe, mamouche, etc at the hypothetical higher prices), if not more.

Some other fun things that Murphy decided to impart on us: We had to close suddenly at 8:30pm the night before because our dishwasher and hot water heater simultaneously blew up. Cue a new water heater at 6:45 am and nearly 3 hours of doing dishes from the night before and you get a pretty hectic 10am door time. Sorry that didn't go more smoothly!

All in all, I'm proud of how we did and will use the insights gained from the event to do better in the future. So many new friends, great times, and above all, great beer. To whom it may concern: thank you for coming!

 

For the people that didn't come bc of the aforementioned chaos of the opening, at about 2pm the bar was nearly empty and everything but the zwanze remained. Tried to get the word out on FB, but it just meant more Fou Foune for me when I got off work. That beer was incredible.

 

how about $14 for 12oz? haha. That's what the price went to at 2pm.

 

Thanks. And I mean Zwanze Day as a whole, not just how H&V ran it.

 

Sucks for the pre-2pm crowd.