It's with a very heavy (and frustrated) heart that I'm announcing that the Grain & Vine Spirit Shoppe in Hyannis will be closing at the end of this month. Alan called a last minute staff meeting last night to inform us that he had sold the business and as of September 30, Grain & Vine will be no more. The new owners don't have an interest in continuing to carry craft beer and will be running the store like any other small liquor store on Cape. Our regular Friday tastings will continue for the next couple of weeks. Any special orders will be done on a per case basis, meaning we will special order anything we can for you (while we can) but you must purchase the entire case. We will be hosting a final farewell grand tasting in a few weeks (more info as it comes) and we encourage all of you to come out and stock up on craft beer. Please bring all your friends; we have a lot of stock to clear out. Now if I may editorialize for a moment. Working at Grain & Vine has been a mixed bag for me. I've never been more excited about a job and at the same time never been more frustrated by a job. To be sure, there were mistakes made along the way and at times we got ourselves into a jam but we knew we could count on our regular customers to carry us through. For the most part they did. A sad truth though, is that there were too many local people who had heard about us for months, sometimes even a year or more, and came in for the first time last week. Or still haven't come in. There were also times when it seemed like the powers that be had decided that we weren't "team players"; we didn't buy enough of X beer (that we and our customer base agreed was mediocre so would sit on the shelves for ages) so therefore we were not entitled to Y special release beer. This I'm sure is usual practice for companies but can be a real killer for small shops that specialize in craft beer. We also ran into delivery problems. There were some companies that would deliver us product after driving around all day with the rear door open and our beer would be hot to the touch. Still other companies on a weekly basis would deliver about 60% of what we had ordered. Not just because products were out of stock, many times because they simply "forgot to put it on the truck". Last week 13 cases were "forgotten" in this way. I'm sorry for the rant-y nature of this post, I'm just extremely frustrated that this shop didn't work. Also I'll be unemployed soon so that's got me a bit down. But I do want to genuinely thank all our loyal customers who made the job worth while. If it wasn't for you guys, we wouldn't have even made this long. I'll miss seeing you all and chatting about beer. Hopefully someone will someday take up the craft beer cause in the MidCape and we can all have a place to hang out again. Thank you all so much. - Kyle Grain & Vine Spirit Shoppe
this sucks, I love that store. unfortunately I live in CT and only get two Hyannis 2-3 a year, but each time I make it a point to stop in at Grain & Vine and drop some cash. As a retailer I always wondered how you could survive with the supermarket type liquor stores around you. I had no plans to make it out there anytime soon, but I will do my best to make it out there and unload some inventory before you close. John North East Wine & Spirits
Kyle, We were sorry to hear this news...incredibly sorry. You'll be missed - by us and by the growing craft beer community in the mid cape area. We're all better off because there once was a Grain & Vine - tho I am sure that is little consolation. Clearly it was Grain & Vine that pushed other local stores into expanding their craft beer selection. Many of us noticed that when you first opened, and I think give you credit for that. Imitation is the highest form of compliment right? Your Friday night tastings were always interesting..and maybe we can work some of those into stuff we do with the homebrew club or as events at the brewery? Sadly most of what you wrote about distribution does not surprise us at all. Its one of the reasons why we have chosen the model we have. I am not sure that the breweries know that this stuff happens... maybe they do.. maybe not. I can certainly see how it would make life difficult from a customer expectation point of view! We wish you and the rest of the crew at Grain & Vine the best. Cheers Cape Cod Beer
Update on the Farewell bash: Rather than having one big blowout party where we'd have to spend a bunch of cash that we clearly don't have, we're going to make our weekly Friday tastings absolutely crazy. Last week we had a lineup of roughly 12 beers, including homebrews, beers unavailable in MA and several cellared beers. So come out to these Friday tastings (5:30-8:00p) and bring some homebrews/food/cellared beer to share if you want. Also I may start some impromptu auctions of our glassware and signs after the tastings. It will be fun and silly because that's how we want to go out. Hope to see a lot of you there.
Truely sorry to hear that you will be closing. Not a regular customer but stopped by (and purchased) occasionally. Always enjoyed the tastings I could make. I will miss the store.
I, too, echo the sentiment of the Cape Cod Beer folks. As a long time seasonal resident of the Cape, you changed the market up there in my opinion. I now have many more stores where I can get good beer when just last summer, I would say you were nearly the only game in town. It's a shame to see you guys go.
I didn't leave with the feeling that things were going well when i stopped in while on vaca in Dennis in early July. While the shelves had limited stock, the quality was definitely there. Always a bummer to see a good shop like this close its doors. Best wishes to you.
Bummer to hear, we just stopped in at the end of August while on vacation and the selection was good and the person working was really helpful with the recommendations. Best of luck to you!
