HOPPY TIMES
SACRAMENTO, CA - According to statistics from the Association of Brewers based in Boulder, Colorado, there were 1,419 Regional Specialty Breweries, Microbreweries, and Brewpubs operating in the United States as of December 01st, 2006, showing just over an 11% percent industry growth for the first six months of 2006, and 9.47% growth for 2005. With that in mind, Hoppy continued its annual trend with a solid 6.4% growth in revenue from the previous year.In the Brewing area, with beer production on the continued upswing, Ed & Co. worked to keep inventories fresh, while at the same time not running out of too many brands for too long of a period of time. The crew continued to add to their inventory of awards by taking several awards at the State Fair this year, along with garnering a Bronze medal in the Robust Porter category for the Total Eclipse™ Black Ale at the Great American Beer Festival this past October. Hoppy logo bottle caps debuted on our bottled products in June, which not only dress the bottle up nicely, but also double for cute little magnets and pins when the hostesses feel a little crafty... :)
In the coming year, look for continued wholesale growth in various retail outlets throughout California via more distribution. Gee...maybe this will be the year that the case boxes finally get imprinted, along with a label update for our bottled brands... :) Instead of looking to get a grain silo outside, which is a short-term fix to a long-term solution, instead we will work toward nailing down a redevelopment plan for not only our current location, but the rest of the four acres nearby that "need" to be re-developed - that is according to the City of Sacramento to meet their in-fill development criteria for any on-site improvements... One more time in English please... :)
In the Sales & Marketing area, with Ms. Terri Burch at the helm, she did a wonderful job adding new distributors to our wholesale network in California, getting chain authorizations at the Beverage's & more stores, Andronico's, Nugget Markets, and Whole Foods Markets, and even some self distribution into the north Bay Area counties. Shelf Talkers and Door Static's were added to the marketing inventory to give our products greater visibility amongst the competition. She continued where Ms. Jessica Karkoski left off by coordinating festival and charitable donations, getting the staff involved, along with attending a number of beer festivals, charitable events, promotions, and everything else when it comes to people/organizations that want donations for some specific cause, or even just want FREE beer from a local brewery.
In the coming year, look for Hoppy to continue supporting various local community philanthropic functions, more chain authorization in retail stores, more wholesale distribution, and possibly even some out of state wholesale distribution.
On the restaurant side of the house, we have seen the business continue to grow from serving a daily average of 439 people in 2005 to that of 446 this past year - an increase of 1.5%. Basically we continued to grow in all areas except for Lunch Monday through Friday, which was down 7.8%. This lack of growth was attributed to construction issues next door with alley access, lack of parking, and weather; along with other Quick Service sandwich shops that opened nearby in the F65 project, and the fact that we had pretty much hit the ceiling for Lunch customers during the week with a "wait" list more times than not. However, we continued to routinely make changes in the food and beer menu's to keep things fresh and exciting, all while continuing to provide our customers with interesting quality menu items.
In addition, we added a brick oven pizza in order to serve pizza in the evening, and we may have to add another one to keep up with the demand at certain times. We removed the spent oil bin by the dumpster area and installed a self contained fresh/used oil system via Restaurant Technologies. We also installed a new double deep fryer system with a built in filtration unit to extend the life of our deep fryer oil. We also installed a hood exhaust system in the dishwashing area to aid with airflow throughout the kitchen, and we installed a lovely new hot water heater. From the customer's point of view, the temperature sensors were moved to measure the return air, which essentially made the air throughout the restaurant more consistent and enjoyable, thereby reducing the number of issues with people being too hot and/or too cold. We also installed two sets of speakers above the bar area for customers at the bar who wish to have some volume on the TV without disturbing the rest of the customers in the restaurant. Lastly, the utility pole in the "middle" of the entrance was "finally" moved out of the way!!! :)
In the coming year, look to see non-trans fat oil being used in the kitchen, a new Server Station replacing the old one, continued menu changes, some paving and re-striping of the parking lot as construction next door comes to a conclusion, a display shelf behind the bar to further utilize space more efficiently for liquor, an even greater selection of merchandise, and possibly some retail packaging of some customer favorites, such as our red pepper aioli, house ketchup, and garlic basil vinaigrette... :)
On the catering side of the house, Hoppy saw its busiest year in catering, highlighted by partnering up with Larksburg Landing Hotel to showcase the monthly Sacramento Chamber of Commerce mixer.
In the coming year, expect to see more Hoppy at various functions around the Sacramento metropolitan area.
Our busiest quarter of the year was the first quarter, which just beat out the second by an average of one cover per day. In addition, we did see the usual seasonal slow down for the third quarter as expected, but outside of Lunches being down during the week it was a pretty consistent year across the board, and basically nothing too news worthy for writing home to mom about... ;)
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