How 2ndKitchen Is Helping Breweries to Solve the Unique Challenges of Reopening

For breweries seeking to reopen their taprooms, recent weeks have seen significant changes to rules and regulations that seemed distant just a month ago. All 50 states are now going through phases of reopening—including specific guidelines for food and drink businesses, such as craft breweries.

Now, brewery owners are tasked with a few major challenges:

• Meeting state, city, and local requirements to reopen
• Keeping customers and staff safe
• Doing their part to enforce COVID-related rules, reducing the risk of a second wave which could potentially shut down taprooms again

However, brewery owners are not alone in this fight. Brewery-tech startup 2ndKitchen has worked to build new products, new features, and new solutions to COVID-related reopening problems facing breweries over the coming weeks and months.

What Is 2ndKitchen?

2ndKitchen powers partnerships between craft breweries and local restaurants, allowing breweries to serve food alongside its beer directly on the taproom floor. It's also 100 percent free for breweries to use, making it a no-brainer for breweries without an on-site kitchen.

6 Ways 2ndKitchen Is Making Reopening Easier for Craft Breweries:

• Meeting the on-site taproom food requirement for COVID reopening, while also offering its customers a full food menu with exclusive items found only in your taproom—100 percent free for breweries to use
• Offering a complete contactless ordering and dropoff food ordering service to avoid unsanitary conditions and reduce the risk of COVID transmission
• Integrate with reservation and wait-list apps to give customers pre-ordering capabilities
• Focusing on beer production while 2ndKitchen manages the restaurant partnership, delivery, customer service, and tech
• Supporting other local small business restaurants in your community struggling through COVID
• Offer contactless curbside pickup & to-go orders with 2ndKitchen 2Go

1. Meet the Requirements to Reopen by Serving Food from Nearby Restaurants

As the U.S. continues its path to reopening, regulations on who can reopen and how they must do so depend on the state, city, and even local municipalities. For many areas, restaurants have been a bigger priority for reopening—with requirements set up specifically to tailor to places that serve food.

For example, five states (California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana) all allowed places to reopen as long as they served food from an on-site kitchen or served food to customers through a partnership with a local food vendor or restaurant—enter 2ndKitchen.

2ndKitchen powers partnerships between craft breweries and local restaurants, allowing breweries to serve food alongside its beer directly on the taproom floor. It's also 100 percent free for breweries to use, making it a no-brainer for breweries without an on-site kitchen.

Example - How Chula Vista Brewery Meets Reopening Requirements in California with 2ndKitchen

When California announced the reopening of breweries that serve food, Chula Vista—a craft brewery in San Diego—leveraged its existing partnership with 2ndKitchen to meet California’s requirement of breweries needing to offer a food menu to customers in order to reopen taprooms.

Chula Vista was able to reopen before competitors, giving it an edge on being one of the first breweries in San Diego to be back open and serving its line of craft beers to its customers—along with delicious food from nearby restaurants. The best part? Chula Vista is able to take advantage of 2ndKitchen’s service at no cost to them.

2. Contactless Ordering & Dropoff

With 2ndKitchen, customers scan a QR code that takes them to your brewery’s food menu directly on their smartphones. This means less contact between customers and staff, faster customer turn over time, better overall sanitation and transmission prevention, and overall gives customers an added feeling of relief and trust that your brewery is doing everything in its power to keep them safe.

When a customer’s food arrives, orders are placed in a contactless-dropoff area of the taproom where customers can retrieve orders. This allows for no direct interaction or contact between the food courier, the customer, and the brewery staff.

You can take the additional following steps to protect customers and staff:

• New taproom floor layout with social distancing practices
• Restroom procedures to avoid crowded areas
• Temperature checks at the door
• Video conference with staff to inform them on reopening plans
• Provide customers and staff with masks and gloves
• Train brewery staff on all new COVID-related policies and safety measures
• Implement new procedures for employees that are sick, and not forcing them back to work if they’re uncomfortable

3. Let Customers Pre-Order Food in Existing Reservation and POS Apps

With 2ndKitchen, craft breweries can offer food pre-ordering features to allow customers to pick food items before they even arrive at the brewery through a taproom’s reservation, brewery POS, or waitlist app by integrating your 2ndKitchen food link directly in the platform. This allows for food to be ready to serve at the same moment customers arrive.

While not only impressive to the customer, it also helps solve problems breweries face with new COVID regulations. In many states reopening plans, there are limits on both the number of people allowed in a brewery as well as the length of time customers can stay in the taproom. 2ndKitchen’s pre-ordering features mean customers can take full advantage of their taproom experience—while also allowing breweries to get more customers in the door, ultimately selling more beer.

4. Focus on Beer Production with a Third-Party Service Managing Food

With 2ndKitchen, you’re able to focus on what you do best—producing beer—while 2ndKitchen manages the rest. 2ndKitchen uses its network of delivery drivers to have orders delivered in less than 30 minutes on average, handles all customer service issues, manages the entire tech side of the partnership, facilitates the partnerships between restaurants and breweries, and more.

You get to offer customers a full food menu without any of the hassles. It’s a no brainer.

5. Support Your Community of Locally Owned Restaurants

The food and drink industry is a tight-knit community. When one small business falls, it’s a sign things are not going well for the industry overall. Supporting one another is crucial to keep your doors open and running a successful business.

With 2ndKitchen, you do just that. The platform partners taprooms with locally-owned, nearby restaurants. While restaurants have had a faster path to reopening, they’re still struggling to the point of some experts calling this an independent restaurant extinction event.

Serving a local restaurant’s food in your brewery not only can help you reopen as well as attract customers but it also directly supports the restaurants in your community who are still only allowed to be at 25 to 50 percent capacity and kitchens that are being underused.

Do you have local restaurants you love? Ones that support similar causes as you? We work with brewery staff and ownerships to find the best restaurant fits for each brewery—allowing you to support the exact businesses you love in your community.

6. Offer Curbside & To-Go Orders with 2ndKitchen 2Go

At the beginning of the national lockdown, 2ndKitchen released an online ordering system for breweries to deliver beer and offering contactless curbside pickup for to-go orders. The product is completely free for breweries who needed an immediate option that was easy to onboard and free.

While we’re no longer in the emergency state of lockdown we were then, 2ndKitchen was able to release a new product to help its customer base in a crisis situation—at no cost to breweries. For 2ndKitchen customers, the 2Go platform is still a free offering that helps new and small breweries support to-go orders and have an online presence.

Learn more about how 2ndKitchen is providing solutions for breweries to successfully reopen, as well as how to get started serving food to your customers without a kitchen – Get started for free.