Beachwood BBQ & Brewing Anniversary today!

How busy is it?

 

It's a nightmare. Way too busy.

 

Wish I wasn't working today.

 

Got there around 15 minutes before 10am. Line was about 70-80 deep waiting for the doors to open. Crazy. Got inside around 1020 or so. Took another 10 before we ordered from the bar. Stood outside in the patio area (no table) for an hour. Finally got to a standing only table outside before we got called to a table inside at noon. No food ordered yet. By this time we had a pint of Greenshift DIPA and Melrose w Citra on Cask and another Greenshift. We put our order in for food around 1215 and 15 minutes went by when we were told that the kitchen wasn't ready to cook the special "lunch" menu. Luckily we had the pickle bar (that was good) to munch on when we were told that the "special" lunch menu would not be ready till 1pm. Finished up our 2nd Greenshift glass and was on our way out the door to the pizza joint next door. 3 hours in and with 2 and half glasses of Julians beers and BW's pickled delight I was starving.
I think Gabe, Julian and Lena was "way" over in their heads on this 3rd Anniversary event. As always great beers were flowing throughout. I remember last year getting there around 1pm or so and getting a table outside within 10 minutes. Food and beer ordered no problem. Left after 2 hours no problem. Feeling satisfied. This year. . . .totally opposite. Don't get me wrong, I love BW. Been a "BIG" supporter for the last 7 years. But this year was different. Great beers. Great turnout. Good service. Not so good on the food menu service. Maybe they need to rethink on next years 4th event. Maybe do like Societe did this year and have a whole week of different events each day. After all, its only going to get bigger and better. Which means more people.

 

Yikes. Kinda glad I didn't go this morning like I intended. Sounds almost like a Churchill's Anniversary level of craziness. If I get a chance, I'm stopping by later tonight and hopefully some good beer will still be on tap.

 

Really did not expect the event to be as busy as it was. I don't think Beachwood did either. The line was something like 150 deep by opening, and we had to wait 2.5 hours for a table, being somewhere near the first people on the waiting list. They didn't enforce the 2 hour limit on tables, and literally nobody was leaving. Saw a lot of people keep adding to tables and start fresh orders of food toward the tail end of the two hours. One hostess in front working with wait-staff to get people seated. Checked every thirty minutes to see where we were on the list. People after us start getting seated, so I go up, and the hostess gives me a stink-eye and tells me she called me twice. Nope, standing ten feet away the whole time.

Staff seemed overwhelmed. I think this was greatly exacerbated by the fact that bottle sales, cask bar, and pickle bar was added to their already 40 deep taplist. Security seemed to be outsourced as well. 3/5 special casks kicked within the first 3 hours. The food was taking a while to catch up with the beer, so a lot of people were drinking heavily on empty stomaches. Food and beer were the highlights, organization and service delivery could have used a bit more fine tuning. Our waitress had a great amount of difficulty getting out food/drink/bill out correctly. Anyway, the BaRS cask was great and so was the Mosaic Melrose. The hoppy pale ales are all fantastic and had a pour of the Tovarish which was excellent too. Beers are really flawless.

I would recommend going around lunch tomorrow. Did it last year and were the only people at the brewpub with 95% of the taplist still going. Please leave your kids/dogs at home for this one. Saw one too many kids falling asleep on daddy's lap while waiting a good couple of hours for breakfast.

 

I love Beachwood, but they just hit the anniversary where they need to change the format. All breweries have the one shitshow anniversary when demand skyrockets, and I have faith Beachwood will return with a new format next year. This didn't work today, at all, and I look forward to a brand new situation for next year.

 

First off I agree it was a madhouse today and the crew needs to look into changes for next year.
My buddy and I arrived at 11:15 and had to wait about 30 minutes to get inside. Once inside we did our usual plan where I ordered the first flight for us while he tried to find a table. Yes I know that sounds crazy but he quickly found a party of two who let us share a table in the bar area. As soon as I brought the brews back to the table we ordered food off the regular menu. Amazingly it only took 15 minutes. We enjoyed two more flights and some eggs and had a great time. We've been to all three events and this was by far the busiest and craziest but will probably go to #4.

 

I was really shocked at how packed it was. Each of the last two years I've showed up early afternoon and had no problem getting in and getting a place to sit within a handful of minutes. I got there at 11 this year and had to wait in line to get in line, so I knew it wasn't going to be a terribly efficient day. That said, all the bar staff were working their asses off and it didn't take me long to get pours of anything. I got a quick flight and a couple of cask pours and left around 12:30 and the line was pretty much already wrapped around to the end of the patio.

I don't think that Beachwood really did anything wrong here, as I don't think they could have foreseen the exponential growth in attendance from either of the first two years to this year. I'm sure there were some annoyances throughout the day, but I don't know how much I can fault any of the staff given how they were getting totally slammed all morning and afternoon.

 

I'm not Beachwood and I wasn't there today, but I could see it coming from miles away.

 

I agree with previous posters that there was a lot of demand today. However, I think there is nothing but good to come of it. I too have been a loyal Beachwood fan since near the beginning, and I was not surprised at the turnout in the slightest. It seemed as though the staff and owners were anticipating this and things seemed to be running smoothly by 1pm. Seemed to be the case of an awesome brewery taking the next step in terms of recognition (several people I randomly talked to were there by word of mouth/hype). Nothing but better things to come for Beachwood in my opinion; hopefully they can satisfy more people's expectations next year, but I expect them to adjust accordingly

 

Do you guys recall what bottles were being sold?

 

System of a Stout. Melrose. Still Life. Greenshift.

 

Greenshift, Melrose, System of a Stout and Still Life.

 

I decided to skip the Long Beach event and drove down to Seal Beach instead -- much less crowded, and some of the other people there ended up leaving the Long Beach event due to how insane it was.

While Seal Beach didn't have that enormous selection of beers above, still got to try Greenshift (absolutely delicious).

 

It's pretty clear that next year needs tweaking to the system and a different approach since it was clearly to out of their hands for its own good. Wait times at the bar were really all over the place. Even trying to get a table around 3 was a three hour wait.

But the pours were amazing and the fact that they still had system for sale was great news. Greenshift is damn tasty indeed.

 

I got there around 9:45 and we were seated by 10:15. I knew about the 2 hour limit on tables before we got there but was interested to see how they would enforce it. They kind of did with the tables in my area at least. I don't think they would have tried to kick people out if they resisted or anything but I'd say we stayed about half an hour over our limit. But that was because they took awhile to get some food out for us.

Either way, I had no problems with the event but can see it needing some changes. I was just glad I decided to get their early.

 

I lagged and got there towards 5:30pm. Waited about 45 mins for a table while sipping a few pints. It was admittedly crowded, but lightened up a bit by then. There were times where I walked straight up to the bar for a pint.

Greenshift was delicious. As was Mocha Machine. 8 Buffalo was a bit boozy. Pickle bar and food was awesome - spaghetti stuffed meatballs! Left with a growler of Melrose. Great job BWBBQ - lived up to expectations!