14 Jun Five Year Anniversary at The Pint Room – A Time to Reflect and Celebrate
by Mark E. Lasbury for Indiana On Tap
There are some breweries and craft beer restaurants that ignore or underplay their anniversaries. Three Floyds in Munster is a famous example; they don’t celebrate an anniversary at all. Others give the achievement of being open for another year the attention I think it deserves. The Pint Room in Carmel is getting ready to celebrate their 5th anniversary, and they want you to come celebrate it with them. I sat down with GM Andreya Kennerk to talk about anniversaries in general and what The Pint Room has planned for June 21st from open (11am) to close (1am).
Anniversaries are Important. To my way of thinking, a small business that has learned enough about how to serve customers and offer them a unique experience to remain open for a few years should celebrate it. Andreya agrees, she told me, “There are a lot of restaurants and bars in the Carmel area, with new ones opening all the time. I think it is crucial that we point out our longevity.” It’s true, despite the many openings, the statistics still say that 80% of food and beverage establishments close within the first five years.
If five years is the dividing line, then The Pint Room does have a lot to celebrate since this is their fifth anniversary. Andreya agreed that five years is a good marker of success, saying, “Thriving as we are in this crowded environment and over this time period, I think is important that we take a little time to say ‘Hey world, we’re still here;’ we must be doing something right.”
image credit: The Pint Room
If a brewery or craft beer bar chooses to ignore their anniversary, I think it separates them from their patrons and is a missed opportunity to build that personal relationship between craft beer provider and craft beer drinker. It also does a disservice to all the people who got you there, including co-workers and customers. As Andreya says, “The credit for our successes goes to every person who ever spent a dollar here or served a dish or beer here.” Anniversaries are days of gratitude for your co-workers and your patrons; let them celebrate with you. Working in craft beer isn’t easy, so it’s nice to find a place that is doing it right and growing over time.
The Carmel Pint Room Story. Indeed, with all the competition and the premium of offering a more expensive beer due to its quality and production, it can be hard to feel secure working in career in food and craft beer. But Andreya told me, “I’ve been GM here for two years, and it’s nice that I do feel secure in my, and our, position in the market. It’s worth a celebration.” This is despite the fact that after two years, some patrons are still amazed to find that she is the local head honcho – the easygoing attitude, petite build, and youngish look have fooled even regulars into believing that though she is management, there must be another person in charge. Nope. Though she credits her team constantly, Andreya really is the GM there.
The Carmel store is the second oldest Pint Room, being preceded by Dublin, OH and followed by Littleton, CO. Then there are the Half Pints that came later and are a smaller version of the big stores – in Columbus, Marysville, and Worthington Ohio. The sales from the three larger stores are all similar now, after Carmel had a lead early in their life. Some of this can be attributed to the fact the fact that Carmel is such a congested area it is hard to do larger events, and the stores in Ohio can draw from each other to find extra help for events. Nevertheless, Carmel is thriving in their location.
And speaking of the congested location, it needs to be pointed out that while The Pint Room Carmel is in a densely commercial area, there is plenty of parking. I myself just tried out the parking garage right next to The Pint Room for the first time last week. I don’t know why, but when I see a parking garage, I assume you have to pay. I need all my money for beer, so I was happy to learn that this is a FREE parking garage, with exit doors that empty you out very close to The Pint Room back entrance. I considered it a good find and wanted to pass that along.
Carmel may appear to be a hard place to find parking, but there is a free garage right next to The Pint Room. image credit: Cranford.com
The Celebration. Now that you know the history of The Pint Room in Carmel and know that you have easy access to them, let’s talk about what they have planned for their anniversary celebration. First of all, it isn’t exactly their anniversary on June 21st, but the idea is bigger than the date. They opened in April, but they think that June is a better time for a celebration for a couple of reasons.
One, June 21st is the Summer Solstice, giving everyone the longest amount of daylight to celebrate with them and is a nice way to juxtapose this party with their other large event, the Winter Solstice Celebration in December. And two, the June date is warmer and is good for featuring lighter beers, again juxtaposing this event to the Winter Solstice which is a celebration of stouts and porters.
Bar Manager and beer buyer David Gross has gone above and beyond for this year’s anniversary/summer solstice party. Twenty of The Pint Room’s 124 draft lines will be dedicated to rare sour beers, helping them focus on bright, refreshing beers for summer. The featured beers will be released in two waves, one when they open and one at 6pm. This ensures that the most people will get to try something special and that there is something to look forward to.
Yup, there’s a glitter beer on tap for the anniversary. image credit: DuClaw Brewing
This year, David’s selections include, but aren’t limited to, Founders KBS and CBS, DuClaw’s Unicorn Farts (we’ve tried this one, don’t let the name or the glitter dissuade you), The Napa Parabola from Firestone Walker, Zombies Take Manhattan from B. Nektar Meadery, and Goose Island’s BCBS, as well as many lighter and sour beers. There will be many brewery representatives on hand to talk about the beer and the breweries with the patrons. If anyone knows how special it is for a small business to celebrate a five-year anniversary, it’s brewery personnel, so they definitely want to be part of the celebration at The Pint Room and to support a business that supports them. The reps will be certain to have a good amount of swag to hand out, and in addition, a spinner board will be brought out for prize giveaways. Everyone should go home with both belly and hands full.
And while a big focus of the party will be on the beer, the food at The Pint Room takes a back seat to no one. Happy hour specials will be on tap all day long on the 21st, with $5 cheese curds, wings (5), bottle caps, street tacos, Jojo’s, and pretzels. The full menu is definitely available too, so pig out as you drink the beers.
Conclusion. Anniversaries are important, just as important as peoples’ birthdays. They are a time to reflect, either as a person or a business. It’s crucial to see where you’ve been, think about how you got to this day, and reaffirm what is dear to you and how you want to move into the future. Each year in the books is a cause for celebration. Since craft beer is such a community – amongst the brewery people, amongst the craft drinkers that move around from place to place, and amongst the regulars who call a couple of specific breweries home, it’s important to share these days with them, and to keep the relationship uppermost in everyone’s mind.
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