How to keep staff & customers safe

There's a lot of uncertainty out there right now, especially in the industry (more on that down in the headlines section).

Given that, I thought I'd share some tips on safe de-escalation from general all star and friend of Brave New Bar Darian Everding.

Darian manages London Underground, a craft beer and whisk(e)y bar in Ames, IA and also works for the SAFE Bar Network.

Below you'll find some very quick bullet points from Darian's approach to de-escalation training, but please make sure to read the full article and watch the short video clips for more in-depth tips:

• Sometimes staff don't bring up difficult customers because they feel like it's a personal issue, not the business's. Of course, that's not true.
• Staff need to feel comfortable talking about problem customers, so it's your job to create spaces for it—in regular meetings, group messaging, etc.
• Consider being on call for staff so they can reach out if there's a bad situation brewing.
• Train your staff on de-escalation—believe me (and Darian): they crave it.
• What is de-escalation training? This isn't a technical definition, but de-escalation is a set of skills you use to slow a situation down so that it doesn't escalate into violence or danger.
• Darian recommends these resources: SAFE Bar Network, Right To Be and Healthy Pour.

Like I said above, please check out the interview clips for more in-depth tips from Darian, and if you have any follow up questions please just reply to this email and I can get you in touch with Darian.

❓ Why is it worth it?

Because if it’s not listed on the menu, customers won’t know to order it, and it won’t sell.

Even if your servers are ready to answer the question (which, honestly, often isn't the case), many customers just don’t want to have to ask. Instead, they’ll just order something else that they know is available, or maybe nothing at all.

❓ How can I do it at my business?

For starters, anything is better than nothing here. If all you can muster is just a half sheet of paper with your rotating beers listed on it, that's still much better than "ask your server."

If you'd like to up the design a bit, you could of course do something manual—create an editable menu template in Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or Excel. And once you have your template designed, just edit it whenever you get a new beer in and print it out.

The last month or so we've spent a lot of time on tariffs and how they'll likely affect the industry. Someday we'll be done talking tariffs, but this is not that day. Here's the latest:

• EU threatens 50% retaliatory tariffs on US spirits, Trump threatens back with 200% tariffs on European alcohol. The European threat came in response to the 25% tariffs Trump leveled on all foreign metals that began this week. Trump's move was a retaliation to that retaliation. The EU's tariffs are set to go into effect in April, so the timeline leaves open the possibility that none of these won't actually come to pass. If the EU's 50% tariffs do go into effect, it'll be another blow to the US spirits industry, which is already facing plenty of sales headwinds at home. We can only assume it'll be even worse for European producers. This all feels ridiculous. It's putting the industry through a ton of whiplash and leaves everybody with a ton of uncertainty.
• Tariffs on all non-US aluminum go into effect & brewers worry. We've mentioned this before, but it's worth revisiting, since the tariffs actually went into effect this week. This tariff is going to drive up the cost of cans, which is going to drive up the cost of beer, which is almost certainly going to mean less beer is going to be bought, which is bad for breweries. The extremely frustrating thing, as Reuters points out, is that metals are a complicated and intermingled supply chain, and the average beer can sheet is actually made of 70% domestically recycled material. But because 30% comes from outside the US, the whole thing is subject to the tariff.