Which six factors should decide a brewery and taproom market

What to take away

Why no ranked list appears

Published market rankings for this trade are usually built from demographic data at a city or county level. Your business will happen on one block, at specific hours, under one state's license rules. Those three things dominate the outcome and none of them appear in a demographic ranking.

The second problem: a brewery selling most volume through a distributor has a different best market than a taproom that lives on evening trade.

One wants logistics, space, and cost; the other wants people within walking distance at eight on a Thursday. A single ranked list must pretend those are the same business.

So the useful instrument is a worksheet with weights you set yourself.

Decide your operation type first

Write one sentence describing what you intend to be, then set the weights accordingly.

Most operations that fail on location were trying to be the third thing and chose a building that served only one half.

The six factors

Score each on a simple scale for every candidate area, with a sentence of evidence.

One: evening presence. How many people are out, within a short walk, at your intended hours on your intended days. Counted by you, in person, at least three times. This is the factor most rankings cannot see and the one that matters most for a taproom led operation.

Two: competing occasions. Not just other breweries. Every venue competing for the same evening, plus whatever draws people to the block for another reason. A busy area with no direct competitor is usually better than a quiet area with none.

Three: license reality. What your state alcohol beverage control board permits in that jurisdiction, and what local zoning allows. An area that scores well on everything else and cannot host on site consumption scores zero. This is the address level version of what your license actually permits.

Four: building supply. Are there buildings here that can take a brewhouse? Drainage, power, ceiling height and a delivery path are not evenly distributed across a city, and a good market with no viable building is not a market.

Five: labor supply. Can you hire and keep people here, and can they get to you at closing time? Late transit and parking decide this more often than wage levels do, and it feeds directly into hiring and training the crew.

Six: occupancy cost against realistic capacity. Not rent per square foot. Rent against the number of guests you could lawfully hold multiplied by the hours you could actually staff.

Weighting, and the arithmetic

Assign weights that sum to one hundred before you visit anywhere. A taproom led operation typically loads factors one, two and six. A production led operation loads four and six. Write the weights down and date them.

Then the score for a candidate area is the sum of each factor's score multiplied by its weight. The number itself is not the point. The point is that when two areas come out close, the weights tell you which factor decided it, and you can argue about that specific thing rather than about a general feeling.

Re run the worksheet after every visit. Scores move as you learn, and a score that never moves means you stopped observing.

What to observe, and when

The observation habit generalizes. The twenty five signal walkthrough in what to look for when you visit any taproom works just as well for reading a neighborhood as for reading a room.

What the general sources can and cannot give you

The U.S. Small Business Administration: SBA Business Guide covers the business planning side: market research, startup costs, permits, insurance, financing and hiring. It is a good frame for the non alcohol half of the decision, and it does not attempt to answer anything specific to a licensed operation.

For the labor side, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Food Service Managers profile describes the work a manager in this kind of business actually does, including scheduling, supply, sanitation and payroll records, on a schedule that runs nights and weekends. Read it when scoring factor five, since the question is whether you can staff those hours in that place.

The federal expectations that attach to producing beer at a given premises begin at the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau: Starting a TTB-Regulated Business: Brewery page. That side does not choose your market, but it does constrain your building, so read it before you narrow to a shortlist of addresses.

Treating the worksheet as a living document

Keep every completed worksheet, with the date and the weights in force at the time. Two things come from it.

Your weights will change as you learn what you actually value, and seeing that in writing is useful. And an area that scored badly at your current size can score well later, which matters when you are considering the routes to more volume and looking for a second room.

Common questions

Is a bigger city always a better market?

No. Bigger cities bring more competing occasions, higher occupancy cost and often stricter local rules. What matters is the block and the hours, not the metro population.

Should I open where I live?

Local knowledge is a real advantage and it is worth weighting. It is not worth ignoring a failing score on factors three or four, because neither affection nor familiarity fixes a zoning refusal.

How long should I observe before deciding?

Long enough to see the area in at least two seasons if you can, and never fewer than three visits at your intended hours. Seasonality is the factor most often discovered after signing.

What if my top two areas score the same?

Look at which factor is carrying each score. Two areas that tie on very different strengths are not equivalent, and the one whose strength is in a factor you cannot fix later is usually the safer choice.

Can I score a market I have never visited?

You can score factors three, four and six from records and listings. Factors one, two and five need your feet, and they are the ones that decide the outcome.