You choose, you pour at Tacoma’s first self-serve taproom

Tacoma’s first self-serve bar will open on Sixth Avenue this spring with a focus on regional brews and family friendly pub food, with ample televisions and a shuffleboard table.

The Redd Dog recently hung its sign outside 2805 6th Ave., the former 3,000-square-foot home of The Pizza Press, which closed in late 2019 following franchise owner Brian Howe’s passing.

A wall of two dozen tap handles — each equipped with a tablet above that explains the product within and calculates the price — will feature dozens of South Sound beers, as well as cider, kombucha and two styles of red and white wine.

“This concept is very interactive,” said owner Lane Scelzi. His hospitality company Ministro Management Group sold its first venture, Sip Restaurant in Issaquah, three years ago and currently operates The Melting Pot restaurants in Tacoma and Bellevue. “You’re not just sitting at a table eating — you’re up moving around and meeting people, talking to people at the beer wall.”

Similar to starting a standard tab at the bar, customers swipe their credit card — only here, you’ll receive an RFID card.

“When you want something to drink,” explained Scelzi, “you just go up to the wall and you just start pouring two ounces — you get charged for two ounces. You don’t like what you pour? You move onto the next one.”

The idea encourages sampling and then perhaps settling into a full pint. The tablets show customers their previous purchases and calculate the cost of your current pour in real time.

The Redd Dog will stock clean pints under the beer wall, plus stemless wine glasses, 4-ounce tasters and wooden boards to build your own flight.

Scelzi described the atmosphere as “just a cozy, comfortable feel,” a place friendly to families and groups, with reclaimed wood on the walls and a variety of high-top and communal tables — one that seats 15 people and two that seat 10 — all with a view of a television.

The menu of hot sandwiches, flatbread pizzas (with the option of gluten-free crust), fried appetizers like onion rings and soft pretzels will offer “a good variety of options for everybody,” he said, including vegetarian and vegan dishes, all served on sheet pans for easy clean-up.

You’ll order directly from your phone, receive a text when your order is ready and pick up at the counter.

In addition to answering questions about the drinks, “beeristas” may also deliver food and clear tables, but generally guests will be encouraged to bus their own tables.

For pandemic safety, the bar will provide gloves, though tap handles and tablets will regularly be sanitized, said Scelzi.

SELF-SERVE BEER BARS IN PIERCE COUNTY

The first U-Pour bar in Washington state, DownTime Taps, opened in Ferndale in 2018, shortly after the Washington state Legislature approved self-service for wine and beer. Now legal in most U.S. states, hundreds of such bars have cropped up across the country.

The Redd Dog will use Pour My Beer, a self-serve technology based in Chicago. Though not the first to market — others include I Pour It and The Table Tap — Scelzi said he was impressed with Pour My Beer’s reviews and customer service. The company also received an investment from Coca-Cola European Partners in 2020 to grow the concept in western Europe, according to Brewbound.

Beyond interest for the beer drinker, Pour My Beer founder Josh Goodman says the system saves bars money by trimming waste.

“Self-serve is like the hospitality equivalent of the EZ Pass for automated highway tolls,” he told Craft Brewing Business in 2019.

According to the company, the average keg costs $150, with the average markup amounting to about $600, but bars often sell less than 80 percent of a keg. The technology “ties pours to sales,” alleviating the need for extra labor, says Pour My Beer.

Two issues sometimes arise when talking about self-service alcohol with regulatory agencies and beer nerds: over-consumption and quality.

To address the former, some bars institute a maximum dollar amount or ounce limit, in some cases in accordance with state laws. Washington state restricts the amount a single customer can pour at one time to 24 ounces total in a max of 12 ounces per glass. On the latter point, Pour My Beer says its use of A/C power alleviates the fear of non-professionals pouring “foamy beer” by building valves and flowmeters directly in the cooler.

Scelzi said his team considered a specific limit but preferred training staff to monitor customers as they would at any bar.

Sixth Avenue also welcomed a new taproom last year with Off Day Beer & Wine, while The Red Hot has been slinging Belgian and craft brews alongside gourmet hot dogs for 13 years.

Asked about the name — inspired by Scelzi’s English lab — and its eerie resemblance to this established neighbor, Scelzi insisted it was simply coincidence.

“We came up with the concept and the name and all the artwork before we found the location,” he said, a time-consuming and expensive process. “It’s a great space.”

THE REDD DOG

▪ 2805 6th Ave., Tacoma, 253-212-1174, theredddog.com

▪ Details: self-serve taproom, targeting May 2021 opening

This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM.