Would you like wine with that?
Beer and wine are hitting the menu of many fast-casual restaurants in Central Florida as operators look to fatten their profits with adult beverages.
Starbucks last week launched beer and wine sales at six Central Florida cafes, hoping that customers will want to unwind with an alcoholic drink at the end of a day instead of a cappuccino.
But don’t look at Starbucks as a pioneer in the trend.
Burger joints, pasta houses and taco shops alike have been adding beer and wine to menus in recent months. Even Taco Bell has acquired a license to sell alcohol as an experiment at one restaurant in Chicago. Experts say that alcohol helps restaurants trying to differentiate themselves from fast food with not only better-quality ingredients but also offerings you can’t get in a drive-through.
Winter Park-based Italio has wine and beer on the menu, as do Tijuana Flats and BurgerFi, to name a few. Shake Shack, the New York City-based burger restaurant, even has its own line of beer and wine, called ShackMeister Ale, Shack Red and Shack White.
Siblings Kelly Rose, 27, and Kevin Rose, 23, of Winter Springs were among the first to try the new Starbucks Evenings program at the cafe in Longwood on State Road 434.
Kelly ordered a glass of red wine and flatbread off the new menu, while her brother had meatballs and coffee.
“I don’t always want coffee at 8 o’clock,” Kelly Rose said.
Starbucks is now on Kelly’s list as a happy-hour destination.
Tijuana Flats has been serving beer and wine since it opened in Winter Park in 1995. The chain also serves sangria and even has margaritas at a few locations, said spokeswoman Monique Yeager.
“It’s not a large part of our mix, but many people like to enjoy a beer with a burrito, so we want to make sure they have what they want,” she said.
Barnie’s CoffeeKitchen in Winter Park started selling wine and beer in 2011 at the same time it revamped its food offerings.
“It’s a big trend that we see in the cafe space,” said Barnie’s spokesman Addison Ames. “It’s less about getting food from a food mill and more emphasis on handcrafted food items. Wine and beer is a good accompaniment to that.”
For decades there has been a divide between restaurants that specialize in beer and wine sales and those focused on quick offerings such as burgers, tacos and coffee, said restaurant consultant Aaron Allen.
The investment boom in fast-casual restaurants is changing that.
“A lot of investors, whether private equity or potential franchisees, want to see better-than-average metrics on things like sales per square foot and average check,” Allen said. “If the average check is $8 or $10, a bottle of beer or a glass of wine adds $4 to that. You do that once in every eight or 10 transactions, and it makes a big difference at the end of the day.”
Restaurants are also making use of the special restaurant liquor licenses that put fewer regulations and fees on certain types of businesses because they generate less than half of their revenue from alcoholic-beverage sales, Allen said.
A liquor license can cost as much as $300,000 in Florida depending on the county and carries a host of inspections and rules. A limited-use license, on the other hand, costs about $1,800 a year.
Craft beers have been a favorite among fast-casual-restaurant drinkers, Allen said. BurgerFi sells beers from Atlanta’s SweetWater Brewing Co. and Florida Cracker from Cigar City Brewing in Tampa.
But there are some drawbacks to a restaurant or cafe suddenly marketing itself as an alcohol purveyor, Allen said.
“If you don’t know how to sell wine, it can make you look bad to customers,” Allen said. “Beer is a bit easier because you can throw it in a cooler and serve it, but with wine it needs to be at the right temperature, and you can’t leave a bottle sitting around for weeks.”
karnold@tribpub.com or 407-420-5664