After Tacoma-led push, Washington says yes to takeout cocktails

Washington state will allow restaurants with liquor licenses to serve cocktails to-go while restrictions on in-house dining continue, following a formal plea led by the Tacoma City Council.

A previous temporary rule change permitted sealed bottles of liquor to be sold alongside takeout food, leaving room for single-serve cocktail kits. Local restaurants and Tacoma officials, with the support of Mayor Victoria Woodards, said pre-mixed drinks would make a bigger dent in lost sales and resurrect part of the experience for the customer.

Drinks must be packaged in a sealable container with no openings, such as a mason jar or hinged carafe, and must accompany a food order. Disposable cups with straw holes or coffee cups do not count, nor does tape covering an opening. When possible, the drinks should be placed in the trunk of a car or otherwise out of reach of the driver, according to specific rules shared by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board in an email to license holders Wednesday afternoon.

Restaurants will also be expected to conspicuously display — both in-person and online, where applicable — a notice to customers reminding them of existing open-container laws.

“The best way government can be a good partner with the private sector and to really support their city is to be agile enough to meet the demand in a way that is safe and efficient, that creates the product that people want and the safety people want,” said councilman Robert Thoms.

Last month, he requested the mayor’s support, after which the Tacoma City Council voted unanimously to support a letter to Gov. Jay Inslee lobbying for this change. The Spokane council also advocated for the change.

Why the change of heart?

In conversations with the LCB, Thoms compared the idea of cocktails to-go with cannabis pre-rolls and decried the thought that people would be compelled to drink in their cars.

“There is a demand by the consumer that is being artificially tamped down by LCB,” Thoms told The News Tribune in a phone call. Restaurants wanted to abide by the rules and avoid gray areas with what constituted “factory sealed,” for example.

The goal, he said, was to provide businesses with “some level of the ability to realize a return on investment of previous spent dollars,” and, ultimately, to put employees back on payroll.

Several states, including Texas, Arizona and New York, have made similar moves in recent weeks to ease the economic fallout for the food service industry during the COVID-19 crisis.

Just two weeks ago, it seemed unlikely that Washington would follow suit.

LCB communications manager Brian Smith told The News Tribune the agency meets daily to address industry concerns, pointing to the “extraordinary step” of allowing restaurants with liquor licenses to sell factory-sealed spirits to-go with food.

“While this allowance has been welcomed, many licensees said it was not enough to keep them afloat,” he said in an email.

According to the Distilled Spirits Council, 31 states and the District of Columbia now allow restaurants and in some cases bars to sell spirits to-go. Of those, 18 states and D.C. permit liquor delivery.

“The hospitality industry has been one of the hardest hit during COVID-19,” said the council’s vice president Adam Smith in a statement. “This critical revenue stream will help support struggling hospitality industry workers, while providing adult consumers with the convenience of enjoying their favorite restaurant’s specialty cocktail in the comfort of their home.”

LCB stressed that the temporary rule change will expire within 30 days of a county’s start date in phase four of the state’s recovery plan.

RESTAURANTS READY TO SELL COCKTAILS TO-GO

The change was welcomed by restaurants with sophisticated cocktail programs, including Wooden City in downtown Tacoma.

“It’s going to be easier to sell one drink — it just is,” said co-owner Abe Fox. “That helps on the bottom line immensely because that’s where your biggest markup can be.”

He and his team have been putting together kits to make cocktails like the Happy Days, the restaurant’s take on the Old Fashioned, but that setup required slipping orange peels and sugar cubes into plastic bags and cherries in a tiny cup, with a small bottle of whiskey on the side.

Now they will be able to mix the drink at the bar and package it in a 200-milliliter glass bottle capped on-site, sold for $10 a piece. They also plan to add a large-format version to make several rounds.

They invested in a simple capping machine, which costs less than $20, to sell the kit components in a classier way than just a plastic cup. At just under $2 each, the glasses themselves are the biggest cost; the caps are relatively inexpensive, about $0.20 each.

That all is to say: A restaurant still won’t make the same margins on these to-go cocktails as they would in-house — not if the cost to the customer remains within reason given the omission of the dine-in experience.

“We’re not trying to make an insane amount of money,” said Fox. They are, however, striving to achieve the same caliber of food and drink, knowledge and hospitality, that guests have come to expect when they sit down at Wooden City.

Samuel Kirbawy, the general manager of Moshi Moshi, agrees that quality and value matter right now. The ramen bar’s initial cocktail list includes a mai tai, a smoky paloma and a whisky highball — all cocktails that will travel well.

A swing-top glass bottle that holds two cocktails (or a double pour, Kirbawy says) will run $5 to $10, with large-format options for $18 to $20.

“If there is enough demand to allow us to bring a dedicated bartender back, and I hope there is, we will also be adding a more intensive craft menu to our offerings,” he said.

As restaurants prepare to reopen — at half-capacity and with social distancing restrictions — when phase two of Gov. Inslee’s Safe Start recovery plan, this kind of creative thinking will continue to be imperative, added Thoms.

“We’re going to have to think about ways that they can expand their footprint beyond the capacity of their existing walls,” he said, pointing to the state’s “long and proud history” of craft beer and cocktails. “We should harness that entrepreneurship, that craftsmanship, and meet the needs of the consumers.”

Fox agrees the sales of to-go cocktails will “benefit us massively not just now but down the line.”

Whether bottled cocktails are in Washington state’s forever future: he is not convinced the LCB will be able to re-close this now-open valve. Even in phase four, he said, “We’re not back to normal until there’s a vaccine, and even then, what is normal even any more?”