It was an easy choice when we decided to collaborate on a beer.”Ĭuilla is encouraged by the response so far this year and sees the increased customer traffic as a good sign for the downtown area. “We found Promised Land makes consistently good beer and they always hit the mark. “We stocked their cans because we want to be big supporters of local breweries,” Cuilla said. It was a perfect fit with Pour Decisions’ own status as a pick-up-only business. Just as Promised Land had opened its own tasting room, limits on indoor customers forced them to start canning its beer instead of offering it on tap. Working on a beer with Promised Land came as a result of the same COVID complications that hindered their opening. The new space also allows another 12 beer taps, on top of the 32 they already have-and with 44 separate beers, they claim bragging rights to the most taps in Hollister. Of course, the addition of 15 arcade machines, pre-loaded with hundreds of classic video games, doesn’t hurt. “People are going to remember their favorites like Mario, Sonic and Donkey Kong and their minds are blown because it is such a throwback.” “The decorations kinda fell in suit after we decided to go game theme,” Cuilla said. The aesthetic of the new space is classic video arcade, with game characters painted on the wall and an overall feeling of being in Super Mario Land. Cuilla describes himself and his partners as children of the ’80s and ’90s and the decor flows from that. The solution was to take over the vacant suite beside theirs to accommodate more customers, bringing capacity from 82 customers to a total of 131, not including the parklet. ![]() ![]() And one thing was that we needed more bathrooms.” “We had to keep being responsible with social distancing, we also had to keep wheeling and adapting. ![]() “When the lockdown opened up in February, we had almost too much business,” Cuilla said. The gradual lifting of restrictions meant adapting to an ever-growing customer base: stocking more varieties of beer and offering more menu items. We kept having to adapt to whatever COVID threw in our way.” “The customer support was great, but it was a challenging rollercoaster over the next few months. “For the first three days, we had to shut down early because we kept running out of food,” Cuilla said. The public response to Pour Decisions’ debut was much greater than the owners anticipated. Having their grand opening during COVID presented unique challenges and by opening in mid-July, new restrictions forced the taproom to add outdoor seating with canopies. Jonathan Cuilla co-owns the taproom along with Joe Nguyen and Nick Donaldson and it was difficult to figure out what he was more excited about-the expansion, the arcade, the new beer, or just having survived the last year of on-again/off-again COVID closures and restrictions. July 18 marked its one-year anniversary and they met it in style with a party on the 17th, not just with the new seating area, which also offers an expanded selection of beers on tap, but with the debut of its very first craft beer-a collaboration with Gilroy’s Promised Land Brewing Company called To the Moon. It’s nearly impossible to walk into the newly expanded Pour Decisions Taproom in Hollister and not want to join the fun as the video game-themed decor grabs your eyes and the sound effects of a dozen arcade machines excite your ears.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |