Vineyards and Micro-breweries

Play it by ear, maybe give them a little food here and there. Buy some wine and see how it goes. If they want money don't give more than 5-7% of gross sales unless you are making big money, you never know if people in the area may go there for BBQ and bring them business. You may get some great catering jobs from it as well.

We do this. So far the breweries we've set up at are glad we're there. It not only brings in customers, but it keeps customers in their seats longer. It works out well for the both of us.

We not only offer BBQ, but we'll do some snacky type food as well. ABT's, pretzels, smoked bacon, mac-n-cheese, etc... Sliders work well as do BBQ tacos. You'd be surprised how many vegetarians drink beer/wine, so a non-meat dish works good too.

Some our busiest most profitable days have been at a brewery.

We do a winery on Sunday afternoons during the summer. They have a band playing from 2-5 and we are set up at that time. They like our food and they just wanted to help us out. We do feed the staff there. Towards the end of the summer we were doing pretty well. At first people didn't realize that there would be food there and they were bringing their own. But that changed as the summer went on. I'm going to see about doing some cheese and fruit trays. I may have them preorder those so I don't have too much left at the end of the day. I'm lucky because I can take my stuff back to the restaurant.

As for paying them. Offer to feed them and that would probably be enough.

What you are doing is huge in MN.

There isn't a tap house in town that doesn't have a network of food trucks and vendors that work with them on rotation.

You're doing it right.

In MN, there is no profit sharing. The tap houses are happy to feed the guests in their tap rooms. It brings in more traffic to the brewery having a food option.

I agree that if you are not in their building, or using their equipment, the deal is quid pro quo. No money exchanges hands, all about two complementary businesses supporting each other.

We do this and there is no reason to pay them. Everyone benefits. Considering the margin and type of each product, they should be paying you, if anything.

I don't necessarily run a "BBQ business" as much as a "food business" and the biggest issues you tend to have with these arrangements are:

1. Poor marketing from the winery/brewery leads to not enough people, people uninformed there is food there, and not creating a setting where you can actually eat. We now address some of these things up front.

2. You are losing out on the opportunity to sell the highest margin items, which are the drinks. We got to an event and can generally count on our fountain sodas to pay our labor. That does not happen at those places.

On the flip side, they tend to be more affluent crowds and you are the only food option there.