Breweries in New Jersey are grappling with how to accommodate the growing number of families visiting their taprooms.
Think of breweries as a boys’ club? Not for this beer lab
Traditionally people might think of breweries as a boys’ club, but women in the industry are creating a more inclusionary space.
- A number of New Jersey breweries have recently posted new adults-only hours or created adult spaces in their taprooms.
- Most breweries rely on the money families spend there, so they have to accommodate them.
- There are no shortage of stories from brewery owners about how distracted parents and mischievous kids affect the taproom experience.
George Orwell described his ideal pub in a 1946 essay: great location, vibes, food, service. Notably, and maybe surprisingly to modern-day craft brewery patrons: families with kids.
“It is the puritanical nonsense of excluding children — and therefore, to some extent, women — from pubs that has turned these places into mere boozing-shops instead of the family gathering-places that they ought to be,” he wrote.
Dan Aron, owner of Readington Brewery and Hop Farm, agreed that families should be welcome at breweries and are vital to their success. But they also, let’s say… complicate matters.
“We were packed last Saturday and a group of kids were tossing footballs over the heads of adults sitting at tables. And you go out and you say stuff as politely as you can, but it’s ignored,” he said. “Now look, I understand, the adults are drinking, you can relax — but we’re not a babysitter place.
“The terminology that I think breweries need to start using is we’re family-friendly establishments. We’re not day cares, and that’s what it’s turned into.”
I don’t think the kids Orwell had in mind were tossing footballs, knocking over tables, jumping on cars and throwing rocks, like brewery owners tell me is happening with regularity — but I’m a little surprised Orwell, so prescient on how things can run amok, missed it.
While, today, families are regular patrons of craft breweries and provide much-need revenue to breweries, owners and taproom managers are now instituting adults-only hours and spaces and reminding patrons of supervision rules to keep everyone safe and happy. It’s a delicate situation.
“I’m a father of two so I understand the need to have a place where families can go and unwind,” said Laszlo Varga of Seven Tribesmen in Wayne. “That being said, we’re not Chuck E. Cheese, which is what we’re starting to see over the past 5.5 years of operation, and lately it’s become worse actually.”
‘Parents have no idea what their kids are doing’
Look, I’m a millennial parent. I’ve been going to craft breweries since before my wife and I had kids, brought our oldest to one when he was still an infant and have been taking both of our now grade-school-aged kids ever since. We go with other families, we go alone to unwind on a Friday night or we go just to kill time between errands.
We’re not alone, as you know if you go to craft breweries even once a month. And while I think we do a pretty decent job being respectful of the brewery and other guests, well… we get lost in conversation sometimes and kids do stupid things.
“The reality is I would say 99% of the parents are very attentive and do a good job of watching their kids,” said Philip Petracca, co-owner of Source Brewing in Colts Neck. “But I have four kids, and kids sometime are a little unpredictable. You turn your back for one second and they get away from you.”
But while brewery owners are more than willing to give parents the benefit of the doubt, it doesn’t change the fact that “kids being kids” is often disruptful for their business and affects the experience other people have in taprooms. My kids might do one disruptful thing behind my back, but then so does another kid and another kid. It’s a ripple effect that equates simply to: A lot of kids are making a ruckus.
And then, of course, some brewery owners say there are plenty of parents that don’t watch their kids at all.
“A solid 30-40% of parents that come in have no idea what their kids are doing,” Aron said. “We almost had to call the police a couple of times; kids were lost, like, ‘I can’t find my dad.’ On busy days like Oktoberfest, we had to make announcements with a megaphone.”
Aron said he recently had a kid picking up blue marbles from the outdoor space heaters and throwing them down the slides. It just made a mess. I have to admit, we recently let my daughter pick out blue marbles from a firepit at a different place, thinking it was harmless, but I’m sure we left some around the dining room when we left. And I’m sure other kids did the same thing. So there are blind spots, even for well-meaning folks. Like when kids at Seven Tribesmen do a very kid thing and bring sticks from the woods into the taproom.
“We go over to the parents and say you know, ‘It’s fine, your kids are having a good time, but when you’re done can you please bring the sticks and the rocks back?’ Didn’t happen,” Varga said. “It’s like these constant scenarios where the staff’s attention is being directed away from what they should be doing, which is serving customers, to being babysitters.”
A double-edged sword: Breweries need families
All right, so if families cause such a ruckus, then why do breweries allow them at all? Kids aren’t buying pints, after all.
For starters, I haven’t come across a brewery owner that actively wasn’t open to accommodating families. Some, like Petracca at Source, made it a part of their business model to be family-friendly from the get-go. Seeing few places with enough space to accommodate those with kids (or dogs), they settled on their Colts Neck spot precisely because it would allow them to host groups of any complexion. Nowadays, they host up to 4,000 people on any given weekend.
“I think that’s been the pillar to our success,” he said. “Just because you’re married and have kids doesn’t mean that you still don’t want to go out and enjoy an adult beverage, but I think taking kids to a brewery that has the facilities to accommodate kids is the ideal path.”
Indeed, some small breweries in more industrial settings just aren’t great fits for kids. But assuming the size is right to fit them, families make a big difference to breweries’ bottom lines.
“We love families. We are a family-friendly establishment. The amount of craft beer enthusiasts that are out there would not keep our lights on alone,” Aron said. “Without families, my business would drop 30%.”
This issue is coming to a head at a time when craft beer is in a bit of a down period, with consumers shifting toward alternatives like canned cocktails, THC drinks or just choosing to drink less in general. Several breweries have closed in the last few years, and a couple of breweries — Lone Eagle in Flemington and Cricket Hill in Fairfield — are being sold. That’s all the more reason to cater to whatever customers are coming in the door, Philip said.
“If you’re not making great beer, you’re not going be in business very long, but if you really want to have a successful taproom, you have to be very inclusive. You have to be able to welcome everyone,” Petracca said. “It’s a tough one for many, but for us it was the focus from the beginning.”
Child policies at craft breweries
In the last year or so, a number of local breweries have posted new guidelines for patrons with kids. Icarus Brewing, the popular spot in Brick, posted its guidelines for kids in September on social media: all the stuff you’d expect (and which had been in place) plus one new regulation: “Minors must remain seated with their guardian at all times. Unfortunately, we’ve seen too many instances of unsupervised children running or playing in areas without an adult present. For the safety of all guests and our staff, this cannot continue,” the brewery wrote.
The post received over a thousand likes, with one representative comment reading: “It’s amazing to me this needs to be said.”
Breweries like Icarus have instituted adults-only hours. For Readington Brewery, that’s weekends after dusk, and at Seven Tribesmen, it’s adults only after 6 p.m. on Wednesday (trivia night) and after 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
“It’s tough, I don’t want to do it,” Varga said. “I didn’t want to do it, but it got to the point where there were business demands in the mix and it was a necessity.”
Other breweries, like Source, have designated areas for families and adults. At their farmhouse brewery, it’s adults-only on the second floor and rooftop terrace. Diamond Spring in Denville has an adults-only area of its outdoor beer garden and prohibits tables of only kids. Readington Brewery has a playground for kids (though, of course, they must still be supervised). For the most part, these delineations seem to be working, but when families violate policy, brewery managers have to tread lightly; it’s always “cordial and calm,” Varga said.
“If we see a kid who’s throwing rocks or running around or acting inappropriate, un-chaperoned,’ added Petracca, “we put a lot of emphasis on how we approach that. We never talk to the kids, it’s always like, ‘Where’s your mom and dad? Can you bring me to them?’ and then we have a conversation with the parents. Most are very receptive, although you do always have some isolated incidents where some folks are not paying attention, but we do a three strikes and you’re out type of thing.”
There’s a balance here that breweries and patrons, those with kids and those without, are figuring out as craft beer matures in New Jersey. For the sake of everyone involved, it seems like most of us have the grace to realize we’re all just looking for a break and to have a couple of pints… even if there are some growing pains along the way.
“We want families to come to our brewery, experience craft beer, sit outside, possibly see some deer walking by and at the same time, have their kids distracted,” Aron said. “But it’s turned into the adults getting distracted and the kids are ruling the roost.”
Matt Cortina is a food reporter at NorthJersey.com/The Record. If you see him at a craft brewery, you can unapologetically tell him if his kids are being a nuisance, or reach him at mcortina@gannett.com.