ignition wrote:On the subject of Hops and Vines... I'd really like to know what's going on between the owner and the city. I've heard lots of hubbub in the craft beer community about how the owner has been trying to get up and running for ages BUT... I wonder how much of that is coming from the owner.
I used to love Las Colinas Beverages. It had a great selection and the owner was always pretty friendly. Then 2 years passed as he tried to "get licenses" and whatnot. I'm not exactly sure that takes 24 months.
The fact that he has a growler bar is awesome but he NEVER updates his listings on either his Facebook or other app pages. Honestly he kind of lost my business because of that. I really, really hope that place succeeds but he's somewhere stuck between trying to operate a bar and a bottle shop. He needs to just pick one option and go with it.
I can actually shed a little light on this... Within the City of Irving you can't just operate a bar without serving food. When Hops & Vines first applied for a certificate and liquor license it came with the understanding that at least 30% of sales had to come from food purchases. They even submitted a food menu to the City of Irving prior to getting the appropriate approval for the business. After a certain amount of time the owner stopped sending in his reports to the City which shows the percentage of food and liquor being sold. The City made numerous phone calls and sent numerous certified letters. They even did inspections and found that there wasn't even a kitchen in the back for preparing food. The city asked the owner several times to come down to City Hall and speak with them in good faith. The City was genuinely trying to help the guy out. Several times he didn't even show up after saying he would come down and talk to them. When he finally did show up he said he had no idea how to fill out the alcohol / food reports and then submitted a report which showed only 10% of sales were food (apparently he was buying / serving pizza from the Italian Café). So at the end of the day the City was left with no choice but to try and shut the business down. There was a pretty well documented report in one of the last Council Work Sessions...