Why Craft & Draft Became Columbia's Favorite Gathering Place

What does it take to build one of Columbia's most beloved local businesses?

This week on the Soda Citizen Podcast, Brad Allen and Mary Lane Sloan sit down with Kellen Monroe and Katelyn Shire, the owners of Craft & Draft, to talk about how a neighborhood bottle shop grew into a true community hub.

From choosing the perfect craft beer to hosting trivia nights, live music, and family-friendly events, they share what has made Craft & Draft a place where people gather, connect, and keep coming back.

The conversation also explores Columbia's growing food and brewery scene, favorite local spots, what makes the city special, and why supporting local businesses matters now more than ever.

Whether you're a craft beer enthusiast, a Columbia local, or someone considering a move to the Midlands, this episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at one of the city's favorite gathering places. 

In this episode:

•  🍻 The story behind Craft & Draft 
•  🍺 How they choose hundreds of craft beers 
•  📍 Columbia's best local food and drink recommendations 
•  🏡 Why Columbia is such a great place to live 
•  🎉 Community events, trivia, music, and more 
•  ❤️ Building a business centered around people, not just beer

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to our next episode of the Citizen podcast. It's still a podcast, right? Yes. Okay, cool. Mary Lane Sloan, I'm our co-pilot Brad Allen. We are with the Art of Real Estate team at EXP. That's still weird to say. So yeah, so we're gonna have a fun episode. I'm like asking a lot of questions that I probably should have, right? Yeah. So we're with like the two co-owners of Craft and Draft, which honestly is like house, church.

unknown 0:26

Craft and draft.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

It's pretty much the way my house my life goes. Obviously, we got Kellen Monroe and um Caitlin Trier. And they're the faces you always see that um you may not know they own it because they're always working wrong. That's how you all know, right? You look busy and carry clipboard as well. Yeah, just to carry clipboard.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

It's the equivalent of walking with a purpose, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Oh, great thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Well, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Thanks for having me. Yeah, appreciate me out. Kellen's second time.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

That's what was fun. It was outside, it was all dramatic, and then we're nowhere in here.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Sound studio?

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Yes. Very moody. I like this space. Well, we try to keep it classy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

That's what happens when you buy too much camera gear. Like, what should we do with it? Let's do this.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Durain them in. Durain them in.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

She thought it was only $1,000. Worked out really well. Yeah. So people that don't know, right? Like Craft and Draft, like y'all are like the OG bottle shop, draft house, right? I mean, but you don't brew your own beer, but you do a really good job of selling everybody else's. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

That's sort of the thing. South Carolina's a three-tier state always. So production of alcohol, distribution of alcohol, retail of alcohol. We fall into that retail category. And yeah, we uh there was no cool bottle shop in Columbia, and we decided to kind of morph an idea of a bar or slash bottle shop, and now I'd call us restaurant, community center. Yeah. Yeah. However, you want to look at that now.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

You got like a permanent food truck now, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:50

Yeah, Devine Street has a permanent food truck and our Irmo shop has a full kitchen and everything at all times.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

I did, yeah. I was like, how do they back that thing in every day? Again, the you know, the thousand dollar toys.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

Right. Yes, he did. If you need a trailer now that we have one. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

I can tell people that we have the best job because we always get the best beers from the best breweries. And that's kind of it makes my life so much easier on selling because I'm not going to sell you something that I don't want to drink myself. Right. Um, so it's kind of really cool that even though we don't brew our own beer, which we actually do for collaborations for anniversary parties and stuff like that, um, but we just have the best job because we get all the good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

No doubt. So let's talk about the beer itself. Like, how do y'all choose? Like what is the type of seasons? Like you kind of go through the darker beer.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

I tried one time to take it from him. I was like, You're so busy, I don't mind ordering. He's like, No.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

Yeah, I think in 12 years now or just shy. Because Andrew ordered for probably the first six months we were open. And then I when I came over from the BOT full time, uh yeah. Basically, I think it was been about what three weeks maybe total of time that I haven't ordered all the beer for crest.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Even the manager is like only like when he's on vacation, he's still ordering the beer. Like he'll be like, You can order from like this one distributor, but like, I got it, don't worry.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

You have to like taste them all so you know you have to taste them all.

SPEAKER_04 3:11

I say in the old days I probably tried to do that. Yeah, it does not work too. Yeah, no, it's beer is interesting because wine, you do sort of get to taste everything. The reps bring samples and everything. Beer is a ton of like sort of blind trusting. Yeah. And and so I say there's sort of the time of the year, what's seasonal, what you know. I I always joke around. I'm like, if I look at our sales numbers and you you show me what beer sold, I'm like, I can tell you what the temperature was and what time of the year it was. Oh, interesting. It all matters in, you know, what sells if it's hot, it's all lighter stuff. If it's cold, it goes darker, you know, that kind of thing. Um, but yeah, it's sort of the I'd say if I'm if I'm going with a hierarchy, it's rare and then excellent, and then new and then local, and then sort of fill in the holes for whatever else we need.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

But no bud lights, no miller lights, and nobody go there looking for that stuff. Yeah, yeah. We try to stay away from uh international. We have something that's similar.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

I mean, we have like the garage beer, that's like really like a lower tier, but easy, approachable, you know, for Miller light drinkers.

SPEAKER_04 4:12

Well, and really like craft has gone back because most of your people who are, you know, smoothies and and big pastry sours and stouts and those kind of things, and IPA guys, now everybody's sort of like rolling back to I would like to be able to drink three or four beers versus.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

The older I get, those IPAs are hitting a little bit different. They definitely do. Yeah, for sure. They're not quite the same. So, what's your most not favorite beer? Like flavor, like type style, type or whatever. Like you're like, I'm not even gonna try that shit, just put on the shelf. Sours, stomach acid. That's what it tastes like to.

SPEAKER_04 4:42

I don't know. It goes through phases for me. I'll say smoke beer, I say roush beers. We have a smoke logger on too right now.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

I didn't try it. And it will make the line smell like the next beer you put on if you don't clean it right away. You can smell the smoke in the beer, right? And then just like that for me is like, you know, like beer killer actually makes a really good one over in on on the river.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

And and and I say Scott's is warm. Yeah, I I can drink the you know, it's sort of the like sours are interesting to me because I like I think I grew up in the south, and the south is always you know, vinegar-based things, pickling things, and so sours, like the first one I had, I was like, oh, this is great. I love this. Yeah. Then you drink like one too many one now. You're like, you know what, maybe I'll just use those occasionally.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

I think I also gave up on barley wines. They're like 14%, and they are just yeah, yeah, they are just too intense for me. I'm too old for that now. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

So but who's your most hated brewer Mskin? Yeah, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. But like, yeah, what's the catch us in the moment? Yeah, yeah. But I can tell which ones you don't like when they go on sale real quick on the front. Got it, okay, cool. Um, but yeah, what is what you say overall, are you mostly IPAs are like the vogue right now? I know you said a seasonal, but like I always like to get IPAs when I come there, but is that what most people like?

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Or I think there's a push right now for like dry hop pilsners right now.

SPEAKER_04 6:11

Yeah, I think it's sort of we're in that weird like I'd say maybe people are looking for the new style. It it's kind of like every few years there's something that sort of dominates the market. American beer is driven by hops, right? Because Sierra Navada Pill came along and no one in Europe had ever thought about like maybe we should make this taste like a fresher version of it versus the bittered, you know, thing that everybody else had done forever. And so every few years there's sort of a a tweak, and I think right now everybody's taking that what makes the New England style IPA attractive to nearly everyone. And now they're going back and applying it to say lagers or you know, just lighter beers. It's like again, I see the funny thing about beer always is those super flavorful things that everybody like craves and loves are great, except for you only drink one. Whatever. Peanut butter and jelly, whatever. Yeah, and beer is built the the business model of beer is built on volume, right? Like there's a reason that Budweiser wants you to buy a case of it at a time, right? Like beer makes money when it's sold in mass. And so if you can't buy more than or if you can't drink more than one, right? That's not good for business for anybody, right? So that's what everybody's trying to figure out. So no.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

I was gonna say, is there like a like a white rabbit brewery that you would like, oh my gosh, if we like your white rabbit, something that you're chasing that's hard to get, you know, like Treehouse.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

If there's a but if they could, yeah, they would be, they would be amazing. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

Treehouse is the answer to that. Yeah, tell me more about Treehouse. Yeah, where are they? They're in uh Cambridge.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Treehouse reps, if you're listening.

SPEAKER_04 7:43

They're in Connecticut. Oh, okay. Um, but they're a little brewery they started up honestly about the same time that Divine Street started up, 2014. They were probably open in 2013. Um, one of our original investors, uh his wife was from their town. Um and he brought us Hayes Sap Julius.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Julius is like, yeah, the one.

SPEAKER_04 8:03

What's the stout call? I can't remember what the stout is called, but he brought us all those beers. And at that time they were ranked like one, four, seven, and ten and like the world beer rankings. In like the old days when beer advocate was a thing. They're just I mean they're insane. They built a brewery, they built like a thirty million dollar brewery in cash. Oh. And like people would just take buses from New York City to the brewery, and like yeah, it was they can't.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Like a Maine style. Like, I mean, I know Maine Brewery, that's kind of one of those I like a lot.

SPEAKER_04 8:34

Yeah, I was about to say, Maine makes like super clean beer, right? Yeah. Treehouse is definitely a hazy beer. Okay, yeah. All right, we'll see what we can do. We'll see what we can do. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this pretty large reach on this podcast. We'll see. Uh, if you go to any like heady concert fish widespread, just look for a guy in the parking lot with a cooler, we'll have them. They'll always have them. But they don't distribute it all or just not this far south.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

They basically like in a very small footprint or at the brewery. Yeah, that's it. Well, so I think people need to know too about y'all spot because like you have grab, I call them grab and go coolers. Like, so you can go in there and just grab a sour, you can grab other ones and make your own six packs. Like, but there's about 400 different how many different beers are you carrying a place?

SPEAKER_04 9:12

So there's somewhere between three and four hundred kinds of beers. Yeah. One, two, three. Yeah. He was there for a minute. I got 300 bucks extrapolated out because of beer, give or take.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

So yeah. And the ground is I appreciate that y'all also sell wine. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because you know, some kind of.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

They don't give people's hopes that they're gonna walk in and it's like.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

No, I'm just saying if you don't love beer and you still want to go and have a good time, uh you have non-alcoholic options, you have wine, you have you're like there's something there's a little something for everybody, even if you're not like super into the beer world.

SPEAKER_04 9:47

Well, and we sort of made that choice, I'd say when we redid the Divine Street store a couple years ago, um, we sort of made the choice of doubled our wine selection essentially. We'd always done it more as like a fun little hey, we got cool stuff if you wanna if you have somebody with you that doesn't drink beer, right? Right. And now, I mean, we've got a pretty good selection, I'd say across whites, roses, and reds, and then I play the same game with wine that I do with beers. I don't like when you walk in and you see something, just not something you see in other places, kind of thing. So um we have a lot of fun sort of esoteric stuff that yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

So how how is the THC game working into y'all's business now? Because before it was like you can't really have it, you can kind of have it because the government knows which under the mouth to talk out of. But now you've got them.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

So well, and we don't know if we can keep them. That's uh that's the trick, but we'll see. We'll see where that's going.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Are you seeing a lot of sales in it though?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Like people, I so I dragged our feet for a long time. I was really worried about the whole mixing of like beer and THC, and I just didn't know like how a bartender could monitor you know, like on the liability side. And so for a long time, I think I was like, no Kellen, no Kellan, no Kelly. He finally was like, we should probably try it. It's it's in restaurants. We see it in a lot of places, like let's dabble with it. And I was like, okay, like let's just keep it local. Like let's try to bring in the you know, let's support one another. We don't need to have the the big names. We can just bring in some local. Well, exactly. And honestly, I have been I have like a hundred, what is it, a hundred and no, a hundred and eighty degree turn on it all because I think the people that are drinking it are responsible in drinking that and not mixing it. And then you know what I mean, like and vice versa. Like they're just you reckon like we're all adults. Yeah, we're gonna do that. We know our most of us know our talents. Right, right. And we're not open super late, so you're just you know. Or they take it home. I see a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

Yeah, I think we went into it worried. We were very worried that it would be sort of a younger crowd than what our normal sort of target customer is. Um I would tell you what amazes me is without pulling demographics, I will just tell you that the biggest customer base is 55 and up. Like that's the people that are drinking, you know, the the people who used to grab a couple beers on the way out the door to take home with them, and they're like, I can take a four-pack of these and drink them at home and feel fine tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

Or I could have drank those two beers that I took home and I'm not gonna feel fine tomorrow. So it's very much it has surprised me. I thought we would get some backlash from it. I thought we would have trouble with people in the store with it. It's been almost, you know, we we have heard no complaints about it. We have seen very I'd say almost I can't name a problem we've had with it. And it has been really surprising who the purchasers are.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

I've never seen a problem at the way at your place, and I've been there a lot of times. So I mean, like I think the crowd itself, there's not usually problems.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

So I bet your food sales went up then, right? Like when like I get hungry when I drink those things. That's why I can't do it. I'm like, I'll take one of these tonight before we go to bed. I'm like, eating ice cream like this is not not good. Yeah, it's gonna be a good thing. I was a lightweight at yeah, uh TLT, THT stuff.

SPEAKER_04 12:55

I'm the worst. I can't I tried one that was like a two milligram one, and I was like, I gotta go home.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Take me out of public please. I've been doing the California Sober for like three months, and I was like, I'll try one of these big ones that I got at like bottles. And then I was like helping at somebody's birthday party, I was helping hosts, and all of a sudden I'm like super tired. I'm like, what? I'm like falling asleep standing up. Oh shoot. And they're like, what'd you drink? Like that's the one that puts you to sleep. I'm like, there's a difference between the city.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Like CVD ones will not use the. I honestly haven't tried one yet. Well, I mean, I had a sip of one, but I but you didn't inhale. Right, right. No, I feel like because I've had kids, two kids under two, it just feels like at this point I haven't been able to like.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

But they'll sleep better.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for anything, I'll sleep better.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

So y'all are like the the the pub, like the old quintessential pub of Columbia.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

But cheers.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah, cheers.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Sure. Okay. Copyrighted.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

We'll know who's in or who's where everyone knows their name are. Like literally, like I walk in, and actually don't go that often, but I walk in, like the bartenders recognize us. They know who we are, we know them from the community. And like, was that always the intention? Like when y'all started this, or just kind of made it.

SPEAKER_04 14:11

I think what we really were planning to place out, right? That was when growler sales were huge. It was still really hard to get any local beer at all. Um, and so we really intended to be sort of 50% on premise, 50% off-premise out, you know, what, weekend one, we probably would have told you that that probably wasn't gonna be the case because you know, we had people sticking beers in in on the shelves and that kind of thing, as using it as a table and that kind of stuff. And we sort of shifted away from that and that sort of became what we are, right? Like a neighborhood, neighborhood bar, and right, you know, the distributors in the early days were like, Oh, we'll cover up the windows, and we were like, Yeah, that's not what we're trying to attract. You know, like I want you to drive down to Vine Street and look in the window and be like, Oh, I see my friend turn around and come have a beer with them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

No, you see kids playing in the window.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

Literally. It was sort of the you know, the family friendly thing, and uh, I say maybe the biggest two compliments we've ever gotten is the biggest one ever is somebody saying, like, oh, I bought my house in Shandon because it was in the walking business of crafting rafters. Like, that's I mean if you're making that claim. Well, social responsible, yeah, yes. Again, the liability, right? Right, yeah. And the other part of that is like people are like, Oh, I don't even keep beer at my house because I'll just stop there and have a beer before I go home, you know. And it's like that's a cool thing to say that we've created, and and really what we tried to do in Irmo too, and and have done a really good job of sort of joke about the community center thing, but it's a community center that happens to be based around craft beer. There was an eighth-grade birthday party there one time I was there. Like that is like probably the coolest compliment I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

We're trying to be uh Columbia's number one one-year-old birthday. Yes, yes, yeah, that's what you need. Right. But legit, like you go there and there's always kids, there's usually always dogs, usually well behaved, and usually old people at the end reading a book. Like that's really the three things I always and people also have a good time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Well, um, we always like to ask the guests on our podcast, because you know, a lot of we we help people move. Um, and a lot of people that are coming to Columbia listening to this, they kind of want to know, like, all right, what are what makes Columbia cool, right? So besides craft and draft, like if somebody was coming to Columbia and they had like a weekend, um, you know, what are some of the things you would tell them they need to experience? Obviously, craft and draft.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

I always go to small sugar and get their pastries or their soft scrambled eggs, like one of my favorite restaurants. Um Sarah's great. Obviously, you got City Grit, City Grit and um El Florgalore. Yeah. Yeah, that are great too. Um and then Hotel Trundle, if you need a place to stay, they're our good friends. That Hotel Boutique Hotel is awesome. And I think they have like Airbnbs too. Um and then I always again I haven't been going out as we're newer moms. But we'll speak to the moments. Like, yeah, well, the Hendrix is like if I have a date night, I'm gonna go there.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Yeah, you run rooftop too.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Um if I have time. If it's not a hundred degrees or maybe that's kind of my you know, circuit. Um, as far as like families go, you got transmission arcade over there, which is great too. Um, we recently took our two-year-old to adventure and like she loved it. And I hadn't been there in years, and that was really cool. And obviously the zoo, family friendly. Yeah, we've got a great idea.

SPEAKER_04 17:14

Yeah, the two things I would say you always tell people are Soda City Market and the Zoo, right? Like those are things that exist here that are better than everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Well, and now you have to say Finley Park too, because it's like that place is just zooming. Yeah, they're killing it. And the live music, I think, every Friday. Every Friday.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

Yeah, I know. Yeah, and they've we've got our first like big music festival coming at the end of this month in Finley Park. I can't wait. The songbird. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_04 17:39

Yeah, no doubt. I do think it's really cool. Like Columbia has some really good like you know, there used to be good stuff, but it was all kind of spread out and sprawled out. Now there's sort of like multiple districts that you can go hang out in. So depending on where you're staying, like you talk about sort of the West Columbia and River area where you know, for uh people like us, like Savage, Beer Keller, all that is in striking distance in the same you know, you can you can walk that. It's a little tougher to walk that, but but still like a close by place. Main Street now has developed into something that's awesome with lots of different things up and down it. You know, obviously we're partial to Divine Street because it's the best neighborhood in the city in the town kind of thing. Um but you know, there's just fun you can go multiple places and spend time in each area, whereas you know, you used to sort of have to move around and I would say if you were trying to hit all the best things, you couldn't it w none of the best things were in the same place. Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Whereas now you got you got lots of good options all in those pockets.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

Yeah, so you can really send somebody like if somebody stays at one of the Airbnbs on Divine, like spend a whole day just kind of wandering up and down the street, stay on Main Street, can wander up and down the street, stay in West Columbia, you can actually do all that now. Like it's cool to see the city have grown like that.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Yeah, absolutely. What's something that you think Columbia is missing or could benefit from having?

SPEAKER_04 18:54

Mine's an Apple store. Yeah, I mean an Apple store. It's like as legit. Well, as a droid person, the fact that we don't have an Apple store is so sad.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Okay, mine's gonna be probably unpopular, but um coming from New Jersey, they are known for our malls. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

Like a two-story like we had one, but she didn't make it. We need money.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Yeah, but we need uh they're just not the same down here. Yeah, right. You could do Christmas shopping and like all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

They still have in Jersey though?

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Like they're gonna be like, Yeah, like Bridge Mutter malls and Short Hills Mall. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Yeah, they've got some big ones in Charlotte in the main.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

And they're all I can't afford the Short Hills Mall. They're all stores that have wood hangers. Like I don't know how big it's like.

SPEAKER_04 19:45

I didn't know that was a real thing.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

But it's gonna be a different caliber.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

That's hilarious. I've never heard that before.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

Okay, malls. Malls. That has not been mentioned here on this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

But I I guess I'm just where you're from.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Nostalgic. Yeah, it's nostalgic. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

I grew up going to the malls, but I wouldn't let it be.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

Well, it was like a giant playpen for teenagers. It was beautiful. Like you could drop them off in the morning and pick them up in the I mean, I would spend all day original fashion.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yeah, we thought it was cool. I'm sure the people that work there do not think it was cool.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

No, probably not. But we policed our.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Okay, I think it's a good idea. I said it right.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah, two birds on the other.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

All right. So breaking down into like Columbia. So if you were moving here, we already talked about like if you were to come to visit, what would you do? But like moving here, it's so hard to describe Columbia. I mean, obviously being from not from Columbia originally and all that stuff. Like how would you describe it as somebody and like what I don't know, how would you describe it? I guess that's the best way of saying it.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

I always say it's a melting pot. I think there are a lot of people that grew up here and stay here, but because of the university, you constantly have like changeover meeting new people. I do think there is a a lot of New Jersey people, but I think that if you look at the enrollment, that's you know, kind of like transparent, right? They're all going there. Um but I think it's just like a special melting pot, like we're mixed cultures and everything like that, and getting to know different types of people.

SPEAKER_04 21:12

I always say like Columbia is a great tiny city, right? Like we feel like a city. We were in Greenville the weekend before last, and like I love Greenville and the way it's grown is beautiful, but it still doesn't feel like a city to me. Like it's still sort of Greenville as a different discussion. But Greenville is a unique thing. Charleston is very much like an old school, you know, they have tons of new development too, but it's very much that old school historic, you know, destination to me. Whereas Columbia feels like a baby man kind of a way, like very concentrated. You know, when you walk through downtown, it feels like you're in a business city, that kind of thing. Um and it's cool that we have, I think, most of the big city amenities without the big city problem. These should be amenities. Yeah. It works.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Well, going back to beer. So, like, if somebody had never like walks into craft and draft and they're like, I'm not a beer person, but I want to be, where do I start?

SPEAKER_04 22:16

That's I say that is the perfect customer for us. Like if you say I don't like beer. Yeah, we're gonna have fun.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Okay, yeah. Well, I don't. So let's do it.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

And I say, like, but you like wine, right? I do. So I would start you on sour beer, almost certainly, right? Okay, yep. Do you drink coffee? Nope. Okay, so we'd stay away from dark beer. But those are usually, I always say those are sort of more the two of the gateways into craft beer, is that like if you like coffee, you probably like stouts, you just don't know it yet, right? Like very similar flavor, mouthfeel, all that good stuff with wine, you know, especially if you like white wine and acidic wine and that kind of thing. You know, zippy Sauvignon Blanc and that kind of thing. Like, yeah, we got you on sour beers, right? Like give you a goza, give you some fruited stuff. You know, like and dabble in there and see what see where it goes. See where it takes us. Okay. Because it really is. I mean, if you look at how many beers there are, right? There's 300 kinds of beer, and like at least once a week somebody walks in and they're like, Do you have X? And we're like, No, not right now. Not right now. And that's with 300 kinds of beer in the store, right? Yeah, it's it's always something out there. And I would say if you just haven't liked beers because you haven't tried the right one.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Oh, okay. Yeah, right. Cool. Yeah, next next carboheg, we're gonna go tasting contest. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, and that's the nice part.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

We always will give you a sample. Do you know what I mean? Like it's kind of like an ice cream store. Yeah. You know, you can have a sample before you buy it. So we want you like that. What you purchase. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

So let's talk. You got a birthday party coming up every summer. Yeah. Right? 12 years this year. You already got a theme picked out, or are you still working on that?

SPEAKER_04 23:48

We're working on themes right now. We've batted a bunch of stuff around and uh themes have surprised. Like I don't know how it's kind of more challenging. I know I don't know why. Maybe we've done all the ones that we wanted to do, and so now we're like, what do we really want to do?

SPEAKER_02 23:59

I felt like they just always kind of fell into place. Like beer watch was just like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, you know, that was one of the original ones back in the day.

SPEAKER_04 24:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

I just feel like we've had like such standards, and now it's like a play on the 12 days of Christmas. You know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:18

Throwing around like the clock, like a clock, like doing a time theme. We've thrown around months and like the year, the calendar, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. There was threats of like a sexy craft draft bartender. Uh I use that word very loosely. Uh uh photo shoot calendar, you know.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

Yes, a calendar. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

Is this usually middle to end of July? Uh well, yeah. The second weekend, second Saturday in July is usually what we celebrate.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

It's a pretty big party.

SPEAKER_04 24:46

Yeah, it's gotten big.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:50

We keep the the sheet, the the the street shutdown will be for we'll call it like five years. So we'll do it again probably like 15 years. 15.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

But like bands, like full day event.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

Yeah, it's music, food trucks, obviously our permanent food truck will be operating again. Yeah. Themes, limited edition merch per per usual.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Oh yeah. And also, I mean, I guess we were remiss, we don't like to talk about Irmo much. I'm kidding. Um but y'all have a massive store in Irmo. Yeah. That's 7,000 square feet.

SPEAKER_04 25:21

Yeah, so like basically uh the store we have times three in Irmo. And it's doing well. I mean, I haven't been out there this year, but like so we just passed six years old out there, and yeah, it's been great. We um, you know, we opened right in the start of COVID, which was a very interesting time to open a second thing, but uh survived and the community's, you know, taking us in and really embraced really fun out there. And um we sort of that stores we like to joke like go into work and you get to do the same thing but different. Um because it's got an arcade in it, and we do a bunch of pinball games with uh Carolina Game Labs and that kind of thing. And and pre pre the food truck at Divine Street was a full our full first full foray into a restaurant kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

So do you think you'll just stay Divine Street and Irmo or will you like go anyway?

SPEAKER_02 26:07

We I mean we have uh I ask them every time. We would have had a craft and draft three by now, but we are, you know, like everyone dealing with liquor liability. Oh, right. And at this point, it's too risky to I think jump onto the third one until we kind of know which direction kind of thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Is that getting wrapped up? Or is that still like just way up in the air?

SPEAKER_04 26:28

The answer to that is no. It's uh yeah. Last year they made some changes. It gave us a bunch more hoops to jump through, and I kind of joked around that we haven't really seen any reality. Public would have less coverage, it would be harder for restaurants and bars, and then reality nobody would really pay much less, then that seems to be sort of the the answer to that. Yeah. But there's some hope they're still gonna work on it some more, but you know, it it's tough what you're talking about with new things in Colombia. Like that's the biggest scare is that there's gonna be less new things because people are scared to open new restaurants and bars because it's it's just a huge expense every year for something you already have established.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So what is the answer to that?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

No insurance for anybody, no lawsuits, all the attorneys go away. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

Knowing that can't happen.

SPEAKER_04 27:19

It's the same way it got to where it is, right? There was no one change that really caused the problem, and there's not going to be one fix that fixes the problem completely.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:29

Um because you know, people should be held responsible for the like the things they sell and the risk they put out into the public, right? But at the same time, I can't put all of us out of business because I don't think everybody wants to sit at home and not go out or have places to go and see people yet.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

Yeah. Yeah, I know. I well just you know, we've got a lot of friends and low that own local restaurants and bars, and that is just like the main thing I keep hearing.

SPEAKER_04 27:55

And I'm just like, oh, we're all sad we feel like you know, one track, you know, we just repeat it over and over and over again because we don't know what else to talk about, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Well, at our insurance company, we we insure several uh restaurants and bars and stuff, and like those are our biggest policies by far. It's just like holy hell, like just to sell a couple of beers at like a local restaurant, not a beer place. Yeah, it's just tens of thousands of dollars a year for that. So it's not even maybe not even worth it.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

I mean, keep doing it so we can keep the policies, but yeah, we said you know, we we lucked out in a lot of ways two successful places. We were we, you know, are profitable at both. We we were in a much different position than lots of people in our industry were. So we have been able to weather the storm and you know, at least for the foreseeable future, we're gonna be okay. It's just you know, lots of people aren't in the position that we are where you know it might not if you if you weren't doing great to begin with, uh huh, it's not something that you can just overcome, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

So it's a lot. Well, we appreciate everything you're doing, and honestly, anybody coming to visit Columbia or if you haven't yet, like you gotta make a stop at craft and drive. Because really being the pub of Columbia, like you're gonna get everybody's friendly, everybody's nice, like you get to meet the locals.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

Make a new friend. Yeah. Like you can take your dog, you can take your kids, hold, go sit outside with the heaters or the fans.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Like I've really got to set up now. Yeah, that's what we have a good one.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Music bingo.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Ooh, trivia, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Yeah, that's a good trivia. Live music, mahjong. Oh, mahjong.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

When do you do mahjong?

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Second Mondays of the month.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Okay, I'm not coming.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Mahjong Monday.

SPEAKER_04 29:28

We need to have like a Ghana's table of Mahjong. You know?

unknown 29:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

He wants to learn because he has the mahjong math on top of it.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

Yeah, I don't. I don't want to learn, I want to win it.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

We should do it in our real estate mahjong tournament.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

Not doing it. I have tried to play that game twice, and then it's just not for me. It's just I can't be good at everything. It's patterned. They're gonna like watch the things.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

You just gotta play with the right people. Uh I mean like ever like approachable that like saying training you have a student and try to teach me twice.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Uh she's like, this may not be for you. I was like, that's okay. That's okay. It's all right. Yeah, yeah. I'll just watch other people play.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Go play mahjong. Um, I just like saying it. It makes me sound very uh astute.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Does it? Okay. You don't even know how to like the math.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Say mahjong, okay? Mahjong. You have to like nod your head when you do it. Um French. All right, anyways, go check out Craft and Draft because this is where you're gonna get the culture of Columbia. This is where you're gonna find new friends, and also you're gonna get some good damn beer. So we appreciate everything y'all done. Thank you. We appreciate all the community and client events you let us have there. It is always awesome, always a good time. So um thanks for being great stewards of our uh our our community. Yeah. It's been great.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

Thanks for being a part as well. That's always the fun part is that we can uh be a part of have other people in and enjoy our business that uh uh helps us. You know, it's great, it's a great collaborative effort. Good to have everybody in and good to have a place where we can have people come in. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Thank you.