Got a big philosophical mission statement kinda question. First off all due respect to Stephen and those who worked on the last party, great work! This is meant in no way as a criticism of anything, just kind of thinking about the pros and cons of the self serve concept we experimented with, and there are definite pros to it, but a few critical drawbacks as well. My question/concern is as follows: we experimented with a "self serve" concept at yesterday's BrewBQ. I'd like to know people's feelings about how that worked out. I have mixed feelings about it, on one hand I feel like it improved efficiency in serving and let more members relax and enjoy the party, on the other hand I feel like having members serve at the party adds a lot to the experience, puts a face on the club for new comers, and provides an opportunity for us to educate or at least explain a little about the beers being served, as well as stroke our own egos, it feels good to serve folks your own beer and explain it, it's the core of what we do
Sun, Aug 14, 2016 - 10:10pm
#1
Continue Self Serve or Nah?
There's always the opertunity for a blend - have the schhol series attended and most beers self serve.
I really liked it - it fit in well with the more laid-back nature of Brew-BQ. As Mark said, a mix is always an option as is having a party like Brew-BQ be self-serve while SCN is fully staffed (and other permutations of that idea, etc.)
My only concern was a lot of the beers were over carbed and pouring cups of foam. I feel with an attendant the kegs would have gotten fine tuned. Aside from that I thought it worked well.
I was thinking about this yesterday. I think having a couple servers wouldn't hurt. Maybe someone for the school beers, then one or two people for serving the bottled beer. I hung out by the bottles on Saturday and when I stepped back to see how it ran with the self serve concept, people were confused about what to do.
If kegs are not pouring right, there's nothing stopping someone from taking a few minutes to fix the issue when they notice it.
One thing we definitely need are the physical menus. Not having them at the party was almost disorienting.
I agree with Jeff. The menus are key for self serving. I thought it was nice and laid back vibe and worked well. But everyone was just having beer, aside from when people specifically said "try my...". The problem, as always, is volunteers. If we had the people, the spots could be manned. I'm honestly not sure how to fix this. The volunteer party didn't seem to make too much of a difference. I'm think we may want to consider not allowing full membership until they volunteer for one party, but there are clear problems there. Maybe something to discuss at next meeting. Great job to Steve who pulled it off with not much help and support!
I agree with Jeff on the menus, we got many requests for them while checking people in.
Think the issues around beers not pouring properly were due to set-up crew not having enough experienced people to do it. The setup crew for taps at around 5:30 was only three people deep, 2 of which had no experience in actually setting up tap systems.
This doesn't really speak towards the self-serve/non-self-serve discussion, but ironing out the difficulties with setting up the tap system will severely alleviate the need for people standing by the stations and pouring beers. This I felt was one positive to come out of the party. Without having "bartenders", it severely relieves the stress on the number and scheduling of volunteers.
Hey, thanks for starting the conversation. I felt it was a big gamble to do self serve, even question if it is right. A mix of bartenders and self serve would be better.
Better signage and layout would have been a huge help. I had a print menu in PDF form, but the whole day kinda killed me. I was there at 8:30 am to pay for the toilet. Something had to give, so I decided Summer was a decent time to blow off the FedEX Office run and go play disc golf.
FWIW, graphic design, printing, and day of signage is a HUGE task for one person, especially if you want the bar layout to coordinate with the menu and signage. We barely get that right when we're top of game.
I enjoyed BrewBQ a lot (thanks gain Steve and team)
I liked the self serve, but agree with the above that 1 or 2 volunteers around the taps to make sure everything is pouring well and helpiing people out wth questions would be great (I thibnk that worked organically to an extent this time)
If we can finalize the menu 3 or 4 days out so we can print it ahead of time that would be great
I liked the pop up of all beers outside, but would reverse it with the taps facing out and all of our beer and equipment in the middle