Good Neighbor Podcast: Milton & More
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Milton, Crabapple, and Hickory Flat
Good Neighbor Podcast: Milton & More
EP #120: The Daily Draft with Sean Daily
Ready to challenge your idea of a typical sports bar? Picture a modern, sports-themed restaurant serving a chef-inspired menu, with an ambiance that feels like home. We chat with Sean Daily, the innovative mind behind Daily Draft in Woodstock. Sean drops nuggets of wisdom on how he painstakingly turned this concept into reality, even amid the trials of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also reveals the unique bacon-centric menu that sets Daily Draft apart, and why he believes it's crucial to offer more than just a game-viewing experience.
The Daily Draft features a plethora of draft beers and delectable food options. Sean invites us into the heart of their enterprise, sharing the history behind his establishment, his commitment to community involvement, and the regular events that keep locals and tourists coming back for more. Whether you're a Woodstock local or just passing through, listening to Sean's passion for creating a welcoming, unique experience is sure to inspire a visit to the Daily Draft!
This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Polar.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody. We are here talking with Sean Daly. He's the owner of Daily Draft in Woodstock. Welcome, sean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're excited to hear about you. Why don't you start off by telling us about the business?
Speaker 3:Sure. Well, the Daily Draft is a more modern concept, sports-themed restaurant. It's in downtown Woodstock. We've been open for just a little over three years now. Like I said, it's a little bit more modern. It has a very chef-inspired menu so it's a little bit higher level than bar food typical what you'd find in a regular bar. It's very family-friendly and we are very open and just a fun place to be. Really we just like having fun there.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. So why don't you talk about your journey? Have you always wanted to open a sports bar? Was this something that grew out of a passion you had for a long time, or maybe a new idea?
Speaker 3:Actually it was a bit of a new idea. My wife and I own another restaurant in downtown Woodstock called Rootstock and we had been doing that for six years and the opportunity presented itself. A lot of our regular customers, a lot of people I knew around the city because we've been in Woodstock for over 20 years now and we're talking about man wouldn't it be great to have a sports bar type facility down here? And if I'm going to spend my time blood, sweat and tears putting something together, it's going to be something original, it's not going to be a cookie cutter of other sports bars. So space presented itself as available and the timing was right and we decided well, let's take a leap of faith and let's see if we can't put something fun together for the community.
Speaker 2:Here's a question for you how do you decide what games and stuff to show? I'm sure people want to watch different things, and how do you guys kind of figure that out?
Speaker 3:Well, not only is the concept modern in look, but it's also very high tech and we basically show every sport and every game and we have almost 60 different TVs. One TV is a large 14 foot by 14 foot TV right in the middle of the restaurant, so any featured games would be on there, like this past weekend. Of course, the SEC championship would have been on there when the Braves are playing. During the summer the Braves are always on the big screen, but we can customize. Every table virtually has its own TV access, so we can customize any customer's experience. They can watch any team they want to follow, whether it's football, basketball, baseball, hockey. We have access to it and we can customize their experience every single time they're in there.
Speaker 2:Cool. What's your favorite sport to watch?
Speaker 3:I'm a college football guy. That's my big thing, for sure.
Speaker 2:Any myths or misconceptions you think are out there about the daily draft?
Speaker 3:I think that a lot of people who haven't been think of it as just a sports bar and not really as family friendly as it is Now. We do have areas that are more bar type situation, a more adult, but not Our main restaurant is completely family friendly. I think that a lot of people don't understand that our menu is an elevated menu while still staying in the price point of a standard sports themed restaurant, so it's not overly expensive. I think that's a misconception. Is they think sports bar? They don't think sports restaurant? They don't think family friendly, and we're very family friendly.
Speaker 2:What are some of your favorite things on the menu?
Speaker 3:Well, when we first started the daily draft, our other concept was wine and whiskey centric. I thought, well, we're doing sports, let's do something a little bit more beer centric in terms of the beverage side of things. When I sat down with our chef to start making the menu, I said, chef, we need to have a bacon menu. She looked at the cross-eyed and didn't understand what I was saying. So we designed a portion of the menu is dedicated purely to bacon, because bacon makes everything better. So we literally have a bacon menu as part of our menu and these are just purely different types of dishes made with bacon, and that was a concept we came up with in the first place, because beer, bacon and sports all go together pretty well. So that's one of my favorite more creative things on the menu and we're constantly updating things. We just upgraded our burger menu and we have what we call the double play, which is a burger that a lot of people can't even finish. It's so big.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's some fun stuff on there. For sure it's hard to pick one thing, but I'm a big fan of our bacon menu, mainly because I had a hand in creating it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that sounds somewhat like so much fun. I'm guessing, since you opened in 2020, that one of the hardships you had was kind of opening in the year of COVID. Do you want to talk about that and any other challenges you've had since you started the business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the timing could have been better, for sure, but you know, when we started the project, it was still 2019, you know the build out of the project and no one had any idea what was about to happen. And so, when we got to that point where we had to make some tough decisions, my business partner and I just said well, you know, did we just cut our losses and go? And neither of us are really quitters, we always finish what we start. So we said we would trudge through it and we would move forward and keep going.
Speaker 3:So we did and we opened June of 2020, right in the middle of all the chaos, and I'll tell you, it was rough, for sure, and it stayed rough for a while there, because even after 2020, just things starting to recover took another year. So, you know, and then add that to the fact that the economy is not its strongest now, and that's year three of our existence, so it hasn't been an easy road. But we have a lot of support from the community and they really, you know, they come in when they can. Even though they're struggling, they do step up and support us and we just, we really love where we are and we're, you know happy to be there and we love being part of that community.
Speaker 3:So, it's been a struggle, but it's really brought out the best in people.
Speaker 2:That's great. That's great. So you have beer at the daily draft and I know the whiskey and wine at Rootstock. You're going to kick back and relax. What do you like to drink, Sean?
Speaker 3:I like everything, but I am personally more of a whiskey person myself. I think it just comes with age and changing palette and that sort of thing. But yeah, I'm personally. I'll reach for a whiskey nine times out of 10 if I'm sitting back for a beverage.
Speaker 2:And how do you guys decide you know which beers to have on tap there? Daily draft.
Speaker 3:We try to keep a very, very diverse selection. So we have in total 56 beer taps and we try to keep it, you know, varied. I have a really good bar staff, really good bar manager, and they know beer. They know, you know a lot of the local breweries. We try we do a lot of stuff from in-state breweries and we have what we have.
Speaker 3:What we have a concept we do have, is called the beer wall, and 30 of our taps are on this self service beer wall in the restaurant so people can try new beers that they've never tried before without the risk of having to pay for an entire glass of something they may not like. Our beer wall concept works on a pay by the ounce system and so we will put a lot of new beers for people to try on the beer wall so they can find a new favorite. We do some do some standards, of course, on the beer walls Well, and we do have regular taps behind our main bar and then upstairs we have a pool hall and in the pool hall we have a small 12 tap system that's mostly focused on seasonal. You know, once a year, twice a year, specialty beers are usually on those taps up there.
Speaker 3:Cool so we say diverse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that beer wall sounds fun.
Speaker 3:It is a lot of fun. People have a good time with it, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and do they pay on the wall themselves? How does that work?
Speaker 3:No, they open a tab and they get a RFID card and the card works on the wall. They use the card to open up the tap and then they just pour what they want to taste and then they can move on to the next tap. Cool, and at the end of the day they close out their tab.
Speaker 2:And was that something that you envisioned or had you seen it somewhere? It sounds very unique.
Speaker 3:It's pretty unique concept. It's existed for a little while, but mostly where you see those are tap rooms where all it is is a large room full of self-serve taps. They don't provide food, they don't have the sports concept. So I really just brought that concept into a sports restaurant environment.
Speaker 2:Wow. Anything else you want to share about the daily draft that you haven't had a chance to tell the listeners?
Speaker 3:Just that we are open Tuesday through Sunday and, like I said, we are every sport for every fan. We do have special events on occasion. We have karaoke in the middle of the week, we have music, bingo, we have trivia. We also have watch parties for all of your favorite teams and we like to have fun, so we do private events as well. We have 1,800 square feet upstairs with pool tables and dark boards and a private bar that people can come and have their corporate events or parties, birthday parties. We've hosted every number, every sort of event up there at some point in the past. So we do events, but private or public. People can find us and know all about our upcoming events on. Thedailydraftnet is our website, or they can just come on in and try us out. We are right there on Main Street in downtown Woodstock 8594 Main Street.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us today, Sean.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thanks for having me on Stacey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was great chatting with you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast Milton and more. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPmiltoncom or call 470-664-4930.