Highland Park Brewery adapts business strategy to survive pandemic
Highland Park Brewery in Chinatown is staying afloat after changing their business strategy to serve their community.
CHINATOWN (KABC) -- Like many businesses in the food and beverage industry, highland park brewery had to change their business strategy.
Bob Kunz is the owner of Highland Park Brewery.
"Essentially, overnight, the model shifted 100%. I mean, we obviously cannot be a gathering place for our community," said Kunz. "It took us a couple of weeks, it was like, you know, two, three weeks we started to see this sort of like, downward revenue, kind of hit a low point about three weeks into this sort of, shelter at home."
Pre-coronavirus, their sales breakdown looked like this: 80% beer on drafts and 20% cans.
But once the safer at home order went into effect, their sales had to shift to 100% cans.
And at first, they were only seeing about 40% of their regular revenue.
"It took us two or three weeks to kind of our team to start to hone in and our customers to get familiar, but now we're operating at like 80 to 90 percent of prior revenue," Kunz said.
Aside from changing their output from draft beer to cans, they also received the small business loan. And managed to bring back the majority of their staff to help with bottling, canning, and non-stop orders.
"I mean, a month ago and I was scared beyond belief. So, I think fast forward to now and it's this just lightbulb moment of like, I think we are one of the fortunate businesses right now."
"I think it's a testament to our customers, but it's also a testament to an awesome team that we have that are you know, not just resting on their laurels, but finding ways to innovate, get creative, be proactive," said Kunz.
