New Orleans budding craft beer community will see the entrance of a new franchise to the region. Craft Beer Cellar, a nationwide franchise, will be opening a branch in the city proper with a storefront at 2801 Magazine St. The location will be owned by three brothers, Matthew, David and Pat Boudreaux. The storefront, which is roughly 2,700-square-feet, will open towards the end of January and will provide for sale copious amounts of bottles, cans and kegs from both local and national breweries, as well as imports from all across the globe. They will also have a limited selection of wine and spirits, all focusing on regional and craft offerings.
New Orleanians may be unfamiliar with the Craft Beer Cellar franchise, but they currently have 33 locations from Arkansas to Wisconsin with another 18 stores in the works (including New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Lafayette). Initial Franchise Fee is $25,000 with an additional $50,000 to $100,000 expected depending on the location. Craft Beer Cellar estimates that it takes between 6 to 9 months to open a store and that locations contain between 900–1,600 square feet. Craft Beer Cellar does much more than just provide great customer service and tasty brews, but they believe education is an important component to selling craft beer and they go on to claim on their site, “all beer geeks in all of our stores are, at minimum, either Cicerone Certified Beer Servers or BJCP Recognized Judges, and many go on to obtain higher certifications. Rest assured that we have studied & researched every single beer in all of our stores, before we made a decision to put it on the shelf.” Our krewe at Beer Down Here look forward to checking out their new digs and are happy to welcome another entrant in the Louisiana craft beer community.
Cheers!
Comments