RNC bad for Milwaukee bars and restaurants

This week's interview clip comes from a conversation I had with Someday Bar's Megan Rickerson.

We spoke earlier this year in a wide-ranging conversation about hospitality advocacy, which basically means how you can work to get better laws and rules for your business through local politics. It's an area Megan became an expert in during COVID.

You can check out all of Megan's advice about the topic on this Youtube playlist, but for this week we're just going to focus on the basics: how you can get started in hospitality advocacy.

Here's advice from Megan on that front:

• First, figure out who your local reps are. Figure out your city council person, your alderperson, etc. If you don't already know, just look it up online. It'll take a minute max.
• Next, track down and save their contact info. Email address at minimum, but hopefully phone number as well.
• If you're not ready to reach out to them yet, save their info. That'll make reaching out easier to do when you're ready. It's like going to the gym—you're more likely to go if you've already got your workout bag packed and in the car.
• Finally, reach out to the reps, even if you don't have anything specific to contact them about yet. The sooner you establish a relationship with them, the easier it will be to get in touch when something does come up. They're humans too, and are more likely to reply to folks they know than those they don't. Of course, if there is something pressing, bring it up ASAP!

Check out the interview clip for more info:

Why?

For a beer drinker there isn’t much worse than getting excited about a beer you’re going to order, ordering it, then being told it’s no longer available.

You’re disappointed, and instead of straight-up joy, you’re starting the night off with a bad experience.

(The experience isn’t much better for the bartender—I know from experience.)

Depending on how out-of-date your menu is and how many folks come in, you could be providing dozens of folks a bad start to their visit.

You should avoid this experience, even if updating a menu is a pain in the ass (though it doesn’t have to be—more on that below).

How?

You can do this manually. How you implement it depends on what works for your team, but it could look like this:

• Create an editable menu doc in Google Docs, Word, Powerpoint, or whatever
• Make sure everyone has access to the doc and knows how to update it
• Make updating the menu part of the opening checklist and/or shift change checklist

It certainly takes some time, but if you avoid just a few bad customer experiences, that time is well worth it.

• Republican Convention bad for many Milwaukee bars and restaurants. The MIlwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the big business boon the RNC was supposed to be is not panning out as planned. While a few businesses have been very busy, it sounds like that's more the exception than the rule. It's been caused by a combination of normal customers staying away from downtown during the convention (understandable) and RNC crowds not showing up as expected. There are even some bad stories about RNC affiliated groups making large reservations and then showing up late or even not at all. And some businesses signed contracts months ago to hold big spaces for visiting organizations, only to have the orgs back out as the dates grew closer. Not a good look in a swing state.
• Bud Light #3. The Wall Street Journal reported that Bud Light is now the 3rd most popular beer in the US, behind Modelo Especial and Michelob Ultra. Modelo had it beat going back to last year, but Michelob Ultra's leapfrog is new. Weird.
• Pernod Ricard exits the wine biz. The move allows them to focus on premium spirits, which have been their best-performing segment.