[bluesman]

Brewpubs are great and I love going to them, personally I have a tough time finding ones on the East Coast that I go to for the food. 

Another very fine brewpub with great food is Iron Hill Brewery. They are in the tri-state area DE/PA/NJ.

[majorvices]

I'd like to hear from the brew pubs you folks are going too that have great beer but crappy food.

[bo]

I'd like to hear from the brew pubs you folks are going too that have great beer but crappy food.

Oak Creek brewery should call you. It's good when you've had a few beers and it's food, but I wouldn't call it good food. Of course they distribute to local bars and I think that's where most of their business comes from.

[Thirsty_Monk]

I saw one comment on the first page that said "you will make most of you $$ of food", (didnt read the 5 pgs in between) so I generalized...but I agree that food is an entirely different biz then just selling beer. 

I said that. If you run a brew pub you will have about 11% sales from beer.
I stands behind that.
If you have just a tap room and you do not serve a food then your sales are 100% from beer.

It depends what you want do do.
I also think your math is quite optimistic.

I still wish you a good luck.

[boulderbrewer]

We are going to bring in food trucks(trailers) to provide food and encourage call ins at our tap room. This may be the way the "Garage Breweries" compete with the Brewpubs.

[majorvices]

A distributing brewery with a tatsing room is a totally different story. You are supplementing your monetary percentage with the tasting room - maybe 5, 10, 15% or more (but doubt too much more). But it is not the primary source of your profit. A brewpub is mostly reliant on people coming to the establishment to consume the product. Totally different scenario. Food is usually a huge deal. Again, not always, but as far as the "model" goes, the primary incentive. Beer needs to be good too to truly be successful.

I'm not talking about gourmet food. Hell, most people think Appleby's is great. I'm just saying you have to have decent food and that as much as we like to think the beer is #1 it is really only a gimmick in most brew pub cases. certainly not saying that is cut and dry, just sayin' that it is the case for a vast majority.

[kohlerbeer]

Brewpubs are great and I love going to them, personally I have a tough time finding ones on the East Coast that I go to for the food. 

Another very fine brewpub with great food is Iron Hill Brewery. They are in the tri-state area DE/PA/NJ.

I work in West Chester PA, and I love Iron Hill.  Those guys run a great place.  Excellent food and great beer.  They started as homebrewers.

[a10t2]

I'd like to hear from the brew pubs you folks are going too that have great beer but crappy food.

I used to work at one. Of course, they only had great beer while I was there...