FSR November 2022

L IQUID INTELL IGENCE

service, and more post-pandemic restau rants … need to make sure that they’re generating income, even when the doors aren’t open—how do you do that?” says Alex Bell, beverage director and manag ing partner at Austin, Texas–based Avi ary Wine & Kitchen, which runs Steady Sippers Case Club at 25 members. “A wine club is always available to the public, that add-to-cart button and swipe of the card are always available with technology … every single moment

seeing a slight boost or crafting chef driven three-course takeout meals paired with select wines that brought diners closer to the brand. The pandemic notwithstanding, oper ators say off-premises wine programs remain a great option to branch into, especially for brands that excel in logis tics and customer perks. For one company in South Florida, the wine club preceded its two brick and-mortar locations. Vinya Drinking

how they’re going to administer the wine club on the backend first because we started out on Squarespace and found it challenging tomanage all the different fees, income, and communications that go around subscriptions,” says Andrew Werth, director of café operations and general manager at The Meteor, whose Worthy Wine Club serves 40 members in Austin, Texas. The structure, subscription options, and pricing of wine clubs run the gamut,

TRUE TO ITS NAME, POSTINO’S WINE CULT BRINGS POP CULTURE TO BOUTIQUE WINE.

UPWARD PROJECTS (2)

with restaurants tailoring their pro grams to fit their brand and customers. For example, Meteor’s Worthy Wine Club offers monthly six-packs ($150 with free delivery) or 12-packs ($300 with free delivery and a $25 gift card); Vinya, on the other hand, dropped from a four-pack to a monthly two-pack with an included party game for $49. Postino operates at four quarterly bottles for $60 (or $220 annually), and Aviary’s offer ings sit at three or six bottles per month in subscriptions of three or six months from $380 to $1,475. Only after considering the value brought to members and logistics can restaurants begin ironing out wine club perks, Angelo says. Perks can include discounts, rewards when dining in or shopping retail, weekly or private tast ings, secret wine deals, cancel-anytime subscriptions, wine playlists, and free glasses of wine at box pickup. “That [free glass of wine] gets them hanging out at our space and also enjoy ing our other offerings, like food and cof fee. And [we can] offer participation in our weekly tasting,” Werth says. “We

you’re open and available, and that’s a smart thing to do to always try to gener ate and automate income,” he adds. At Arizona-based Postino WineCafe (under parent company Upward Proj ects), beverage director Brent Karlicek says launchingWine Cult provided a new platform to interact with the brand’s most loyal guests. The program also encouraged members to share their pas sion for boutique wines with friends and family who might have never stepped inside Postino’s doors. Wine Cult’s formulation was spurred by Covid lockdowns as a way to bridge the gap when dine-in wasn’t an option and to bring Postino to the people, no matter where they were enjoying their wine time, Karlicek says. But even with these inherent advan tages, clubs like Wine Cult still had to swivel through Covid, whether that was changing monthly bottle numbers and

Cru had amassed some 100-odd mem bers when it expanded into the restau rant and physical market spaces. “I’ve seen the key essential of the brick-and-mortar in growing a sub scription model,” says Allegra Angelo, cofounder and beverage director of res taurant Vinya Table in Coral Gables and retail spot Vinya Wine &Market in Key Biscayne. “Having brick-and-mortar in a high-traffic zone is a huge help to drive members. It’s so hard for a brand to live purely online. Once Coral Gables opened in May, that helped a lot of new people sign up.” Attracting members is only part of a much larger equation. Factors like designing a dedicated website for the wine club, setting up payment pro cessing, and coordinating pickups and/ or delivery also come into play—and should be considered early in the process. “[Restaurant owners] need to know

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