"Balancing Family and Dog-Friendly taproom: Is It Worth the Sacrifice?"

As a small brewery with a full service taproom, we have always been family friendly, encouraging all generations to come together and enjoy the social aspect of hanging out together in a relaxed brewpub atmosphere.

Allowing dogs inside our seating area was not the norm when we first opened. At our current location we made it a priority to have outside seating that would be dog friendly, but following the Covid pandemic and re-opening the volume of guests with dogs almost tripled and this area was not suitable during extreme weather conditions. The onset of more "Service" dogs or in alot of cases "Emotional support animals" made it much harder to enforce who was protected from the usual No dogs allowed policy.

In order to keep current guests and even attract many more, we opened our inside space to dogs that must remain on a leash at all times with the right to ask owners to leave if they become unruly or distractive to other guests.

But how do you handle guests that walk inside and allow their children to run wild and even go outside and do everything from climbing onto our music stage that is blocked off, destroying outside furniture, climbing trees and most recently even climbing on top of a Sea Container (Conex) that we use for storage.

These children seem to have no boundaries and are given the impression that they can do as they please while on our property. Asking parents to keep children under their supervision is often met with "How dare you" or a reaction that is voiced in a very negative review, even though this is a rule now posted on every door and window. When did we have to tell people to watch their own children inside of a public place or be responsible for dogs being brought into a place that allows them?

We have tanks and canning equipment, pallets of cans, and kegs behind chained areas that are adjacent to the restrooms. To some children these chains do not symbolize "keep out" or "do not touch". Young children are being allowed to walk to and use the restrooms unsupervised which has led to toilet clogs, and water left running.

My question to anyone else reading this blog is

"What is your business model?"

How are you handling either of these issues?

Do you feel that the revenue outweighs the issues?

Have you had to ask a guest to leave due to their unruly dog or children?

Again we LOVE dogs and children, but often struggle to deal with some owners or parents that do not feel compelled to be responsible for their behavior.

Is this behavior only isolated to brewpub atmospheres because we are often more relaxed?

Signed,

A brewpub owner trying to find a balance.

Denise