Will Village Re-Open The Tasting Room?
The big news yesterday was that the second Oahu lockdown would be coming to an end this week and some businesses would be allowed to re-open with new restrictions.
Where does Village fall into this confusing matrix and will we be re-opening on Thursday. Short answer is NO, we will not be re-opening this week. It is due to a combination of factors:
1. During this current shutdown we took the time to fix a problem with our draft system. Good news is we are installing all brand new beer lines! Even though we clean our beer lines religiously (seriously, sometimes twice in a week when the average is once every 2 weeks). Beer lines get stained and should be replaced every 5 years or so. We also fixed a little water problem we were having. Bad news is we are not 100% finished with this project so we don't have any draft beer to serve even if we did open.
2. Outdoor seating. The outdoor seating we were using this summer was temporary. We are working with our landlord and the Liquor Commission to get access to this space again.
3. Bar vs Restaurant - What is Village? Depends on who you ask and what enforcement agency the Mayor wants to put in charge. Village has always had a full restaurant Department of Health Food Establishment Permit. For our longtime customers you know, we've always served food and always will. We don't however have a restaurant liquor license. If the Mayor decides to put the LC in charge again (which many industry people oppose), then we'll have to wait and see what language and criteria they use to define a restaurant. Most likely it will require establishments to have at least 30% of their gross sales coming from food sales. If that is the case, we'll kindly ask all customers to purchase a food item with their drinks.
4. Flip flops/ups and downs - Finally we are going to wait and see how things shake out. As a business the most difficult thing to deal with is uncertainty and sudden change. We've seen our current leaders flip flop on many items and suddenly change mandates, orders and directions. We hope things run smoothly and things progress, but for now we're going to wait and see.
In the meantime the Bottle Shop will continue to be open. We truly appreciate your continued support! Without that support over the past 6 months we don't know where we would be. We hope over the next couple of weeks you can continue to visit Village for your beer needs. We love seeing you all and honestly can't wait to open the Tasting Room back up soon.
Mahalo,
The Village Idiots