What's going on with Craft Beer Cellar?

Wow. I wish I had the confidence those at CB Stellar have!

Instead of spending time blaming franchisees or setting up Kickstarters for their legal fees or offering all-not-even-remotely-inclusive beer tours of Germany, why don't they take a look at why the brand is in the shitter?

It's not, as they've claimed, because they're women or they're gay. It's because they're unlikable people who self-aggrandize and point fingers.

What a tone deaf approach to the situation. It's like they have JC Tetreault doing PR for them

 

You know what would have saved these stores? If they'd have spent more time pestering their customers about the historical origins of Saisons or whatever the fuck. Among the many ways that CBC has failed to read the room, there is absolutely fucking zero cultural appetite right now beer people who want to "educate" everyone.

That's really only of the tip of the craziness iceberg here, but one of the things that's really kind of jumped out at me during this whole thing is the insistence that their whole endeavor is, like, fighting some super-important cultural war. For too many reasons to name, believing this in 2019 is fucking insane.

 

Its just a way to attempt to absolve themselves of any blame. "This store closed? They didn't get enough education! Oh they did? Well then they didn't totally follow the manual! Oh they did that too? Then the problem is that they didn't stand close enough to me long enough to absorb the amazing hospitable beer knowledge from me thru osmosis! That's it!" It would always be something. Grow the fuck up and look in the mirror.

 

I wasn't going to make the comparison but as long as we're here, it's this compulsive need to let the world know it WAS NOT MY FAULT, even though doing so makes you look worse than if you'd just quietly taken your L. I'm sure we all have a family member or co-worker or whoever like that, where you can trace a perfect outline of how they fucked up by the story they tell you about how they absolutely did not fuck up.

 

If they are gonna really follow the Trump model then look out for these future failed businesses:
CBC Steaks, CBC University, CBC Airlines, CBC Atlantic City Casino, GoCBC.com, CBC Vodka, CBC Mortgage, CBC: The Game, CBC Magazine, CBC football team, and a dozen or so more.

 

“Our leadership & training team are some of the brightest and most poised in the business”

This after blaming the failed stores for not doing the recommended training. Either your terrible leadership allowed the stores to open and operate without training; or, your training is ineffective and/or worthless in the current beer market.

There is so much in that blog post that is laughable. Including the constant references to themselves as a growing company. That’s obviously not true. And I have to wonder how much the franchise fees are propping up the Belmont HQ at this point. Would that Belmont store survive a Whole Foods or Wegmans with a beer section opening in town? Seems unlikely.

 

"Sometimes, we are deemed as "too" critical of certain beers or breweries. We are attempting to make sure that we take care of ourselves and that we have staying power. That when people think of Craft Beer Cellar, that feelings are conjured up, of poise, promise, knowledge, education, down-to-earth, fun, exciting, awesome beer, beer education, good business people, smart entrepreneurs, cutting edge, etc."

Blog posts like this and a gofundme for legal fees definitely dont make me think of "good business people"

 

As someone who's on record in this thread saying I enjoy shopping at the Belmont CBC, literally the only thing on that list that I would ever remotely think of is 'awesome beer'*. And it's not as if they even have a corner on that market these days.

They really need to put somebody else, anybody else, in charge of their PR/social media.

*I'm not saying that they don't represent those other things, I'm just saying that I don't care at all about those other things.

 

https://blog.craftbeercellar.com/blog/co-founders-corner/cofounders-post-1/

 

Wow. That blog is garbage. If I were a franchisee I'd be livid.

Shedding any and all responsibility is laughable. If it makes them feel better about their seemingly bleak future, great, but it's sad.

With respect to Rossie and Ft Point, I honestly feel as though neither of those stores should've been allowed to open. I would think (hope) that Corporate would have to approve all locations and if this is true, and they did their diligence and still willfully approved the respective spaces, they should be ashamed. If they don't approve all locations, they should be ashamed of that, too.

Rossie: no easy parking that I knew of, sub-street level, terrible signage; business probably buoyed by Trillium Substation, something they purport to negatively impact biz.

Fort Point: brutal parking, dead end street, awkward entryway off street, bad signage, too close to FPM.

Feel terrible to anyone losing their livelihood in this mess. Hope future franchisees, if there are any, think twice and learn from this.

 

"Every Craft Beer Cellar store that opens is expected to endure numerous hours of training at our flagship location"

They make it sound like so much fun!

 

Like a "reeducation camp" with beer....

 

Let's talk about the ease of access and discoverability of the former Framingham location. Pretty sure the turn-off from Rt. 9 to that parking lot voids any life insurance policies you might be carrying. Plus the folks running the beer departments at Warehouse, Austin Liquors, etc, seemed to be able to figure out the magic formula of stocking Night Shift, Lawsons, Jack's, etc, without CBC's oh-so-valuable training and education.

 

I've felt indifferent about CBC for quite some time and this crowdfunding thing (and thier blog) certainly doesn't help their cause in my opinion. I still enjoy shopping at some of their locations, but -

One thing I observed recently when I went into the CBC in New Orleans, LA is how are these out of MA franchisees expected to comply with this Belmont store training requirement? This whole blog was heavily MA centric and this particular CBC was similar to another out of town one I've been to - Portland, ME. In both cases I felt they were well located, but their selection was sparse and their employees were not knowledgable, suggesting expansion beyond MA is not working. Additionally, in both cases, there were several other stores in other locations of town that were well-known store destinations that blew them away. So I'm not quite sure where where they lie with regard to CBC and its current strategy - maybe they're grandfathered outliers (?), but either way they're not doing any favors to the brand name and image.

 

They're really trying to shove the education thing down our throats. That seems less important these days than when the Belmont store opened. Yeah maybe a couple customers may ask them the difference between saison and biere de garde or whatever, but I think most people just want to be in and out of the store without being hassled. That's one reason I would opt to NOT visit the CBC near me even though it was super close. Occasionally I would still pop in because they'd sometimes get stuff other stores don't but I always cringed a bit when I walked in.

All the other stores in town seem to do just fine without the "education" position. It's almost as if the super master cicerone thing goes to Suzanne's head. I'm someone who loves reading about the history of beer styles, but it's a personal thing that I enjoy reading about casually because I find many styles have interesting histories behind them. But it stops there for me. I once said to myself "hey I already read about beer styles for fun, maybe I should try to get BJCP certified, just for fun." Then I quickly squashed that idea because I realized certified "beer experts" are some of the most insufferable people to be around.

 

As someone who is close to an owner, I’m totally disgusted by this latest blog post. Stellar, you can’t have it both ways: taking credit for the stores that are doing well whilst taking no responsibility for those that don’t make it.

No small business owner has ever said “I’m going to skate by with the minimal amount of work and expect my business to succeed”. Your franchise owners are all hard working people who invested their time, money and energy into their franchises. To point the finger at them for failing to make a living is irresponsible, mean-spirited and extremely poor public relations/franchise support. How about spending time with them at their stores to help troubleshoot issues instead of accusing them of not following your ‘prescribed recipe for success’? Or perhaps assisting with site selection prior to opening (which seemed to be lacking with the two MA closings recently)

I can personally speak to the Glassdoor reviews - everything in them is true. My advice to the Stellar folks: get off your high horse, spend a LOT more time supporting the franchises you currently have rather than expanding, spend time in each shop to get a feel for the individual stores (they’re not all mini-Belmonts, ya know!), reinstate a communication platform so store owners can once again communicate with each other, and for goodness sake- quit badmouthing your franchisees! If you have an issue, speak face to face and try dialogue rather than dictatorship.

Unfortunately, if past behavior is an indicator, things will continue as they have been: shaming, blaming, social media rants and continued lack of support/assistance. I truly wish all the remaining CBC franchises strength and luck in the future- they’re going to need it.

 

I've said it already, but their failure to read the room in that regard is astounding to me. Here's a successful beer in 2019:



The assumption behind a beer like Nite Lite is that people want something that's better quality, that's associated with a cool local brand instead of a heavily-marketed national brand, but what they don't want is someone coming in and telling them, oh, actually the kind of beer you like is bad. It shows a lot more respect for the customer to assume that they drink light macros because they enjoy that style, rather than they drink it because they haven't had the opportunity to be "educated".

Ten, twenty years ago, it was probably fairly common for someone to try an IPA for the first time and come away with a "whoa, what was that, tell me more about it" sort of reaction. That's fucking done man, ask anyone about IPA and they'll tell you in no uncertain terms if they like them or not. It's like if someone tells me they like Drake, I'm not going to give them a lecture about how they should listen to Wu-Tang or some shit. It doesn't matter what the relative merits of Drake versus Wu-Tang are, no one wants to deal with that guy, and therefor no one wants to be that guy, at least not much past their 20th birthday or so.

 

This is exactly how I feel about CBC -- especially the old Framingham store. Owner was nice but was, in my opinion, overbearing. I'd rather a store let me know they're there if I need help than immediately try to direct me to a certain beer.

 

I especially hate this because then I feel kind of rude if I don't take them up on their suggestions. "I'm here if you need me" is all I ever want from a sales associate in any kind of store. I haven't actually run into this problem at CBC myself but if the owners see that as some kind of failure on the part of the staff then I'm all about failure.