Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Not to be confused with a brewery

Project nixes the word brew to raise its cocktail game

An expanded bar reflects that beer taps are no longer front and center at Project Bar & Grill.
An expanded bar reflects that beer taps are no longer front and center at Project Bar & Grill.

“We’re not a brewery,” stresses Beau Schmitt.

Schmitt and business partner Mike Sill opened the Brew Project in Hillcrest in fall of 2015, converting an old craftsman home into a bar and restaurant outfitted with a patio, sports broadcasts, and second story events space. At its center was an all-local, all the time craft beer taplist, and the slogan, “A brewery tour under one roof.”

However, this month the bar dropped ‘Brew’ from its name, rebranding itself as Project Bar & Grill, emphasizing its status as a full service bar that also serves cocktails and food. The business did both from day one, but Schmitt says the word brew led potential customers to believe otherwise.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“A year ago, we realized people still weren’t getting past the fact that we were a bar and not a brewery,” he explains, “It happens every day.”

The problems with that were adding up. For one thing, customers know brewery tasting rooms tend to close by 10 pm, and don’t typically serve food. So even though Brew Project stayed open til 2 am, serving food until 1 am, misguided beer customers didn’t view it as a late night destination.

“How many people weren’t coming here because of that?” Schmitt and Sill hypothesized, “Because they didn’t know we had beer and liquor?”

Over the past year they’ve been incrementally reconfiguring the property: doubling the size of the bar, and changing the décor to make the cocktail program more visible. Schmitt says even subtle changes in the new year, such as mounting a neon Cocktail sign or hanging a Jameson’s whiskey tin on the wall, have dramatically increased the sale of cocktails, which operate at a higher profit margin than beer.

“Consumers don’t readily notice that they’re seeing it,” Schmitt says, nevertheless, “liquor has almost tripled in the past six months.” Prior to the change in presentation, spirits accounted for nine percent of Project’s sales; now it’s up to 26 percent, and rising. The bar has replaced draught wine options with draft cocktails, including a nitrogenized peanut-butter and chocolate whiskey shot, and three lemonade cocktails bolstered by the trendy, hemp-derived anti-anxiety supplement CBD.

Meanwhile, Project’s 100 percent local beer stance has softened, and it now features guest taps of out of town craft brands and imports.

Beer remains the bar’s largest seller, and the business is still proud of its “best beer selection” accolades. But part of Project’s rebrand has to do with a changing craft beer market that includes surging keg prices and a proliferation of neighborhood breweries and taprooms.

“Beer costs have been going up,” says Schmitt, noting some breweries and distributors in the past couple years have raised the price of a keg of IPA from $180 to $210, or higher. “It’s really hard to justify that purchase,” he adds, “We have a responsibility to our guests not to charge 8 or 9 dollars a pint.”

On the retail side, Schmitt and Sill don't see customers wanting to cover rising beer costs, further reducing their profit margin of selling beer versus liquor. So, up went the signs promoting specialty cocktails, away went the word brew, and with it, perhaps, the notion that promoting craft beer selection is a powerful way to improve a San Diego bar's bottom line.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Halloween opera style

Faust is the quintessential example
An expanded bar reflects that beer taps are no longer front and center at Project Bar & Grill.
An expanded bar reflects that beer taps are no longer front and center at Project Bar & Grill.

“We’re not a brewery,” stresses Beau Schmitt.

Schmitt and business partner Mike Sill opened the Brew Project in Hillcrest in fall of 2015, converting an old craftsman home into a bar and restaurant outfitted with a patio, sports broadcasts, and second story events space. At its center was an all-local, all the time craft beer taplist, and the slogan, “A brewery tour under one roof.”

However, this month the bar dropped ‘Brew’ from its name, rebranding itself as Project Bar & Grill, emphasizing its status as a full service bar that also serves cocktails and food. The business did both from day one, but Schmitt says the word brew led potential customers to believe otherwise.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“A year ago, we realized people still weren’t getting past the fact that we were a bar and not a brewery,” he explains, “It happens every day.”

The problems with that were adding up. For one thing, customers know brewery tasting rooms tend to close by 10 pm, and don’t typically serve food. So even though Brew Project stayed open til 2 am, serving food until 1 am, misguided beer customers didn’t view it as a late night destination.

“How many people weren’t coming here because of that?” Schmitt and Sill hypothesized, “Because they didn’t know we had beer and liquor?”

Over the past year they’ve been incrementally reconfiguring the property: doubling the size of the bar, and changing the décor to make the cocktail program more visible. Schmitt says even subtle changes in the new year, such as mounting a neon Cocktail sign or hanging a Jameson’s whiskey tin on the wall, have dramatically increased the sale of cocktails, which operate at a higher profit margin than beer.

“Consumers don’t readily notice that they’re seeing it,” Schmitt says, nevertheless, “liquor has almost tripled in the past six months.” Prior to the change in presentation, spirits accounted for nine percent of Project’s sales; now it’s up to 26 percent, and rising. The bar has replaced draught wine options with draft cocktails, including a nitrogenized peanut-butter and chocolate whiskey shot, and three lemonade cocktails bolstered by the trendy, hemp-derived anti-anxiety supplement CBD.

Meanwhile, Project’s 100 percent local beer stance has softened, and it now features guest taps of out of town craft brands and imports.

Beer remains the bar’s largest seller, and the business is still proud of its “best beer selection” accolades. But part of Project’s rebrand has to do with a changing craft beer market that includes surging keg prices and a proliferation of neighborhood breweries and taprooms.

“Beer costs have been going up,” says Schmitt, noting some breweries and distributors in the past couple years have raised the price of a keg of IPA from $180 to $210, or higher. “It’s really hard to justify that purchase,” he adds, “We have a responsibility to our guests not to charge 8 or 9 dollars a pint.”

On the retail side, Schmitt and Sill don't see customers wanting to cover rising beer costs, further reducing their profit margin of selling beer versus liquor. So, up went the signs promoting specialty cocktails, away went the word brew, and with it, perhaps, the notion that promoting craft beer selection is a powerful way to improve a San Diego bar's bottom line.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

At 4pm, this Farmer's Table restaurant in Chula Vista becomes Acqua e Farina

Brunch restaurant by day, Roman style trattoria by night
Next Article

The vicious cycle of Escondido's abandoned buildings

City staff blames owners for raising rents
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader