Starbucks’ plan to start serving liquor in some of its Canadian coffee shops is in line with a trend towards cafes offering Grand Marnier alongside the dark roast, according to a Vancouver-based liquor consultant.
Starbucks plans to offer beer, wine and light food items in several Canadian locations by the end of 2015, according to media reports. The company has yet to specify the locations, but plans to try the idea out as a pilot program.
Bert Hicks of Rising Tide Consultants said that in British Columbia it would be relatively easy for Starbucks to get its cafes licensed through a food primary license. It would take between three and four weeks to get the licence and would be a much less onerous process than what liquor primary establishments (pubs and nightclubs) have to go through.
“They would have to have a menu and kitchen equipment that would meet liquor branch requirements,” he said.
In the past, food primary licences in British Columbia were more restrictive, with rules requiring restaurants to have an extensive menu and even restricting the number of televisions, Hicks said.
But in the past decade the rules have been relaxed and this is becoming a more popular option for cafes. Hicks recently worked on a food primary liquor licence for a café in a Whole Foods grocery store in Vancouver.
However, he noted that licensed cafes normally don’t depend on liquor sales as their primary source of revenue.
“Their liquor sales are not huge — it’s an added amenity.”
@jenstden
