SAFETY HARBOR, Fla. \u2014 Safety Harbor is now allowing microbreweries and distilleries to have stationary food vendor trailers, a change city leaders said will give customers more dining options and businesses another way to bring people in.<\/p>\n
The Safety Harbor City Commission recently passed an ordinance that allows and sets standards for stationary food vendor trailers at microbreweries and distilleries. Crooked Thumb Brewery is looking to add one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will give customers more options when they go to a microbrewery or a brewery, where right now all they can do is drink,\u201d Mayor Joe Ayoub said. \u201cThis will give them the opportunity to have a drink and to get something to eat while they\u2019re there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crooked Thumb co-founder and CEO Kip Kelly said he has wanted to serve food at the brewery, but city code previously did not allow it. He said the brewery is planning to place a food vendor in its beer garden.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make it aesthetically consistent with the rest of the building here, which is very rustic,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
Details about what food will be served and who will operate the vendor have not been decided. Kelly said he believes adding food will help business.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe rely on volume,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cHaving another reason for people to come here should increase that volume.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelly said distribution sales for Crooked Thumb are down by about 50% over about the past 18 to 24 months.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur place in the marketplace is getting smaller and smaller, and that has really harmed us,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
New Gallup data says the number of Americans who report drinking alcohol remains at a record-low 54% for the second consecutive year. That is down from 67% in 2022.<\/p>\n
Kelly said Crooked Thumb\u2019s Safety Harbor taproom has not seen the same impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople still like to come here and we have a great staff, they\u2019re super friendly,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cWe\u2019re dog-friendly, we welcome the community, we\u2019re kid-friendly. I think that has helped keep us pretty solid here in the taproom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Safety Harbor also recently expanded the hours food trucks can operate. Ayoub said that the change was also intended to give residents more dining options in the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAFETY HARBOR, Fla. \u2014 Safety Harbor is now allowing microbreweries and distilleries to have stationary food vendor trailers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[767,2031,274,558,770,2200,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,2032,1374,835],"class_list":["post-386617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-community","tag-app-local-business","tag-app-top-stories","tag-business","tag-community-news","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-tyler-oneill","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}