We're Not Buying Another Pot

Garth’s Brew Bar is one location, and I intend to keep it that way. No second spot, no franchise dreams, no empire. Which means I own exactly one pot, and the physics of one pot are unforgiving. If you don’t stir it, everything settles. The good stuff sinks, sticks to the bottom, and quietly scorches while the surface still looks fine.

So we stir. New taps (and tap handle styles… side-pull, anyone?!), new events, small experiments the regulars didn’t ask for. Not because the bar is broken, but because nothing standing still ever made a spark, and a team ladling the same soup every week goes to the bottom of the pot right along with it. Stirring is how one room stays new. It’s also how the people in it stay awake.

A note on technique, because stirring the pot has a bad rap. The rap comes from people who stir just to see what splashes. That’s not stirring, that’s flailing. A pot stirrer worth the name has a strategy and a target, and knows exactly what the dish is for and who’s going to eat it. Last month I stirred the pot on the messaging for a product video. The splash landed as a blog post and a LinkedIn post. Stir on purpose and even the mess feeds somebody.

The standard cure for a stale business is a bigger business. Another location, another line, another pot. That’s one way to stay new. It’s the expensive way, and it won’t fix a bottom that’s already burning.

Stay Positive & Stir