Kharkov resident Sergei Kovalenko, the founder of the Altbir family of restaurants, and his staff are regular participants in the Forum of Brewers and Restaurateurs. At the last Forum in Kiev, Sergei spoke about his original approach to the restaurant business. In Exactly it was a question of where and how to sell the beer.<\/p>\n
Sooner or later, any restaurant-brewery begins to look for additional sales channels. Altbir solved the problem with its own retail network: "Of course, there are residents of our favorite city who prefer to receive guests at home - it is for them that the BeerStore network from Altbir is open." In an interview, Sergei shared his valuable experience in creating it and explained how important the popularity of the restaurant itself is for success.<\/p>\n
"Beer. Technologies and Innovations ":<\/strong><\/p>\n - Sergei, as the owner of two restaurant breweries that work almost continuously, you probably faced the problem of selling beer. How do you solve it?<\/em><\/p>\n Sergey Kovalenko:<\/strong><\/p>\n - To begin with, it is worth understanding the main purpose of our two brewery restaurants, which are the Altbir family of restaurants. The goal of the Altbir family is to "give emotion" to the people of Kharkiv, improving the overall quality of life.<\/p>\n Altbir is primarily two large restaurants in Kharkiv, one of which is located in Saltovka, in one of the largest neighborhoods in Ukraine, with 650,000 inhabitants. The youngest restaurant with an average capacity of 800 people per day is located in the city center. And it is not even positioned as a brewery, we call it a show restaurant. And there is little on the menu of the usual "beer cuisine" - mostly classic European. I confess, I myself prefer European cuisine and do not really like the so-called beer. We deliberately made restaurants of two different formats: in Saltovka simpler, more soulful, and in the center - more pathetic.<\/p>\n So, closer to the topic. All components of the restaurant are very important! I was at the beer tasting competition for the first time, and we have already had 5 successful competitions in cooking. That is, the kitchen in the Altbir family is really restaurant and very strong. In addition to two seasonal menus, we have had the Battle of the Chefs project for 3 years: 20 dishes of Italian, German, Greek, Israeli cuisine and so on - every month we choose a new country. Of course, there is a powerful project "Beer of the Month". At the end of each month, we present to the Kharkiv public another experimental variety. By the way, our Dry Stout, which took 4th place in the East European Beer Award 2017, was just another beer of the month. The presentation is always accompanied by a colorful show. At the last forum, I talked about musicals with guest artists and singers, and on October 28, we showed our first own production of a musical based on the songs of the group "Leningrad".<\/p>\n What does this have to do with beer sales? And the kitchen, and the beer menu, and the show - all this is an emotion. And to arouse interest, to make the public talk about you, is the main secret of success. You can't make yourself fall in love - you need to captivate people with something, motivate them\u2026 I always say: we don't sell beer, but positive emotions.<\/p>\n When a person visited our restaurant, ate delicious food, he liked the program, he begins to get used to our brand. There are more and more such people, and the brand is gaining value and fame. Then you can safely open beer shops in each neighborhood, gradually covering the entire city. And imagine if we started not with a big restaurant, but with a small shop! In any case, you can't hang gold handles on his door\u2026<\/p>\n - How many Altbir stores are there in Kharkiv now, and how do you plan to further develop your corporate network?<\/em><\/p>\n - Today we already have 25 retail stores, and in 2018 we plan to increase this figure to 50. We are also going to open 3-4 craft pubs in addition to restaurants, each for 70-100 people.<\/p>\n - What difficulties did you face?<\/em><\/p>\n - The most difficult thing in any work is to put it correctly. Needless to say, retail turned out to be a completely different activity from the restaurant business. The whole last year was spent only on how to properly debug the retail sales scheme.<\/p>\n - What range of beer is offered in restaurants and shops? And at what price?<\/em><\/p>\n - Altbir restaurants cook only 18 varieties, of which 3 are basic for both our establishments: "Czech Pilsner", "Cabinet Black" and "Belgian Golden El". There are 2-3 simpler varieties in retail that are not served in restaurants. Now retail stores sell beer at a price of 36 hryvnia per liter, and restaurants - from 62. The maximum price - 180 hryvnia, these are special expensive varieties like the Imperial Stout. Taking into account our level of quality and production costs, such prices are absolutely justified. I don't want to sell my beer even more expensively and I also can't: there are 10 brewery restaurants in Kharkov, and Altbir is already the highest in the price category. And Ukrainian buyers, alas, have not become richer in recent years.<\/p>\n - Yes, now people have to count money. Is there a system of discounts in your restaurants?<\/em><\/p>\n - Of course, there are regular customer cards. First we played with the discount system, now we have switched to the bonus system: it provides loyalty to each guest. And visitors are already 80 percent permanent.<\/p>\n - Draft beer at a price of 36 to 180 hryvnia per liter - not everyone is used to this either.<\/em><\/p>\n - Yes, it is more expensive than in ordinary beer stalls, and I understand perfectly well that by offering beer in the price segment of about 20 hryvnias, we would sell much more. But first, I want to immediately offer the best quality we are capable of. Secondly, around the summer of next year we will start selling more democratic beer from 25 hryvnias. But I put the expensive one on purpose first.<\/p>\n "Why?"<\/em><\/p>\n - The fact is that if your brand has a solid reputation, you can always raise prices if necessary. But this is impossible if we start immediately with the democratic line. For clarity, I will give such an example. Imagine that Mercedes-Benz bought the \u0160koda plant and released a new car under its brand, 5 percent more expensive. They will probably buy it. But if my dear \u0160koda releases the S-Class, it is unlikely that it will sell well, even with higher quality than Mercedes.<\/p>\n Therefore, our path was as follows: first to surprise, amaze people, meet their needs for good food and entertainment, to promote beer. In our restaurants, about a fifth of guests can see the brewery directly from their seats behind the glass wall. This arouses interest and automatically removes the question that is often asked: "Are you really making beer here yourself?" By turning the cooking of foam into a part of the show, we raise the quality of the drink in the eyes of people, make it more attractive. Thanks to this, the reputation of the restaurant is growing. For example, a couple of years ago I offered the director of the Kharkiv Theater of Musical Comedy to change artists. Then he refused me, and now we work very closely together.<\/p>\n - But all this requires serious investment: a restaurant with an interior and a large staff, professional shows\u2026 Isn't it easier to open a beer shop right away?<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>- Yes, at first it is not a very profitable business, because a restaurant, a brewery and everything else is not cheap. The maximum profitability, of course, is given by the difference: there the investments are relatively small. And yet I am convinced that without its own brewery, without a "flagship" in the form of a popular restaurant, the retail chain can not develop so successfully. When opening new beer outlets, we conduct special surveys and keep statistics. It turned out that about 30% first buyers know about the brand "Altbir" and visited our establishments. People talk about us and our beer, and "sundress" radio is the best advertisement you can think of. When every third resident in the city knows about you, that's enough.<\/p>\n Even the "competition" between the two restaurants benefited us. At first I tried not to force - it's impossible! - at least encourage Czech brewers to make the basic varieties the same\u2026 In vain: Libor and Robert are real creators. I don't know which one is better, and I will never talk about it, because I love and appreciate both of them very much. They brew the same beer completely differently. But it turned out that our guests specifically go from one "Altbir" to another to try options of the same variety, and argue where it turned out better.<\/p>\n - Didn't you think to sell your beer also in other people's shops and restaurants?<\/em><\/p>\n "By no means." And I will never do that. An important quality of a leader in any business is intuition. My intuition tells me that Altbir beer should only be sold by a person in the form of Altbir and only under our sign, in a branded retail chain. Imagine that you found a diamond not in a jewelry store, but in the sand. Do you really think it's a diamond, not glass? I do not want to be in someone else's drinking establishment, even a respected one, to the guest's question "What kind of Altbir is this?" answered: "Yes, just some beer." Only your employees can instill the value of the brand, pride in it. Although the main rule is the absence of rules, this is where Altbir began\u2026<\/p>\n - The name "family" speaks of how important employees are to you. Has everyone contributed to the overall success?<\/em><\/p>\n - Of course, to succeed, you need all the best - not only equipment but also staff. At Altbir, the city's best chef (I'm not exaggerating), the best manager and wonderful brewers. It sounds smooth now, and in the first year when I assembled our team, I had a hard time. We had to learn to work with seven adults, ambitious and energetic people, each of whom has his own opinion on any issue, until we played as one well-coordinated orchestra. But when they played, I was very happy. Now the Altbir family is my pride and, in fact, my life\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n