After closing their doors due to the new coronavirus, restaurants and bars throughout New York State now have the opportunity to sell alcoholic beverages for delivery and take out. But they face a new challenge: how exactly do you prepare and pack a cocktail to go?
As part of sweeping changes related to the pandemic, the state relaxed previous rules that prohibited restaurants and drinking places from offering liquor products for consumption off-site. Previously, establishments could only sell beer to go.
The opportunity may counteract some of the financial stress that bars and restaurants face as the state prevented them from serving customers at its facilities last week. By state mandate, beverage delivery and delivery orders must also include food. Of course, the food can still be ordered without alcoholic beverages.
But store owners and managers said it’s one thing to make and serve a Manhattan or margarita on the spot, it’s another to ship the cocktail in the hope that it will properly survive the trip. “We’ve had to change the whole business model,” said Linden Pride, owner of the award-winning Dante bar in Greenwich Village. Now it offers a menu of bottled martinis.
Some establishments said they have consolidated their bar menu to simplify it during a confusing time. Even in the artisanal age of cocktails, now may not be the time to serve up a multi-ingredient drink that requires demanding preparation methods, they said.
But beyond deciding what to offer, bars and restaurants must also make sure their drinks are packaged in a way that stays contained. Some admit that they trust the standard take out cup, often used for iced coffee, and hope for the best. Others come up with different methods, like bottling their cocktails and sealing them with a lid.
At the Brooklyn Safehouse, a bar in the Greenpoint neighborhood, sturdier takeout containers, such as food containers, are used for drinks. Tony Petillo, the owner of the bar, said that when he hears the “hard click” of the container when it is closed, he feels confident that the liquid will not spill.
By Charles Passy
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