Retail Watchers

A new Arizona law allows drinking and shopping.

https://chainstoreage.com/sip-and-strol ... ng-centers

I know Texas allows beer & wine sales in places like supermarkets and malls (along with drinks based on them). Two of my local supermarkets back home have some sort of beer venue, and a few malls I've visited have bars. You can't take the beer off-site, though, but one of the supermarkets has a huge outdoor patio almost the size of the store itself (that's an exaggeration, but it is huge).

Neiman-Marcus has a wine bar on the main floor of the Somerset location kind of tucked under the escalators. Opened in the past year--I suspect the liberalization of liquor laws coming with COVID let them open it (they already had a liquor license for the Cafe on the 3rd floor).
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Not entirely new. My recollection is that Louisiana is quite permissive about "open containers" in public and Schwegmann's had bars in at least some of their supers. My local DC Whole Foods used to have a bar set-up pre-COVID and would have wine tasting evenings, with stations throughout the store, so you could drink and shop. They and Trader Joe's have irregularly brought back regular wine tastings (usually just one vendor at WF and store staff with a few different bottles at TJs).

Department store restaurants have discreetly had liquor for a long time. The old high end tea room restaurants had it partly because it provided a location for "respectable" women to have a cocktail during the day and it helped draw men into the store, esp. if there were a lot of offices nearby. Some stores went so far as to have a separate "men's grill" for the latter.

Up in Washington I know the QFC flagship store in Downtown Bellevue added a bar with glasses of wine and beer on tap in a remodel that they did around 2014, although I don't ever recall seeing it open, and have no idea if they kept it in subsequent remodels. My guess is that they used it primarily for growler fills rather than customers coming to drink in the store.

Brian Lutz wrote: ↑January 13th, 2023, 8:31 am Up in Washington I know the QFC flagship store in Downtown Bellevue added a bar with glasses of wine and beer on tap in a remodel that they did around 2014, although I don't ever recall seeing it open, and have no idea if they kept it in subsequent remodels. My guess is that they used it primarily for growler fills rather than customers coming to drink in the store.

There was a Fry's Marketplace that opened in 2016 near my house that had a bar with wine and beer. It was one of the first things removed when COVID hit in 2020 and has not been replaced.

The bar is back

at Fred Meyer - Stadium in Portland. However, you must consume your alcohol in the bar area I believe. Previously I think patrons might have been allowed to walk up to the mezzanine "cafe" area and I know they had an event or two on the third level patio and demo room... but of course the virus and consumer tastes changed all that.

All Oregon Market of Choice locations feature a tap bar with a mix of beer and wine. I believe the general idea is that you will stay in the corner designed for beer/wine sales, but most of their locations do have a mezzanine dining area as well. They seem to have given up on some of the other "service food" instead of beer/wine, such as noodle woks and hamburgers.

In grocer bars that did not come back here:
New Seasons Markets (ownership change 2019, probably staffing/wage in the market)
Whole Foods - Pearl District (converted to Amazon lockers and pickup area)

Beer and wine bars have been fairly common in larger new Lowes Foods and Harris Teeter locations in North Carolina for several years. I think it’s pretty common in Pennsylvania as well, since that was part of the original loophole that allowed supermarkets to start selling beer to begin with IIRC.

Albertsons also has a bar in the new Broadway store in Boise.

I remember a couple of Winn Dixie stores remodeled around 2019 had a small bar area added called WD’s Taproom. The shopping carts also have built in cup holders.

I don’t think the concept took off in more than a few stores, but I think at least one of ge former Earth Fare stores they took over had one added also.

Given WD’s approach to throw new concepts at the wall and see what sticks, while changing course every few years, I doubt it will ever be a widespread offering.