Local Fort Worth brewery, Wild Acre Brewing Co., had to be inventive after opening its restaurant location in the midst of a pandemic.
According to John Pritchett, CEO and founder of Wild Acre, the company was about to start interviewing and hiring staff to work at its new restaurant on Camp Bowie Boulevard, when COVID-19 was promoted to pandemic status.
Knowing that the food and beverage industry would likely take a hit, Pritchett held off on taking on more employees. Instead, he decided to repurpose his current ones.
Wild Acre’s sales representatives were originally hired to go out into the community and sell the company’s beer to grocery stores, liquor stores, restaurants, and bars. Social distancing rendered this job dangerous and impractical.
Instead of laying off the sales team, Pritchett decided they would work with the chef at the new Camp Bowie location to prepare curbside pickup orders.
“We wanted to retain all of our people, so we sat down and asked ourselves how we could use them. This is what we came up with and, so far, it’s working for us,” Pritchett says.
While Wild Acre’s first location is primarily a commercial production brewery with a taproom open to the public on weekends, the new location is a full-service restaurant. It officially opened March 21.
Currently, the restaurant is only fulfilling curbside pickup orders. The menu includes an assortment of hot and cold gourmet sandwiches and family-style dinner options that change weekly.
“It’s kind of a unique and interesting way to open up a new location — obviously not what we planned, but we are making the best out of the situation,” Pritchett says.
