We hear lots of questions about tipping. Can I include kitchen staff in tips? Can food runners share tips? What about my sushi chef? Restaurants, bars, caterers and venues often surprise us with innovative ideas about tipping employees. Unfortunately, tipping has not so clear laws about who can – and more importantly – who cannot share […] Read more
We recently learned of a new downside for Tennessee retail liquor stores delivering bottles of alcohol to customers. The Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission cited at least one off-premises license holder for delivering hooch to a confidential informant. The sale to minor citation involved a call to the package store for delivery of a bottle of alcoholic […] Read more
We love that the new Tennessee ABC under Clay Byrd is committed to transparency. A huge new development under Director Byrd’s leadership is compiling and releasing comprehensive reports of all ABC citations against license holders. The most recent report is here. The 98 page report summarizes citations from January 2016 through the first few days […] Read more
Turnover among Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commissioners is inevitable. Although the alcoholic beverage industry is relatively glamorous, as compared with morticians and auditors, for example, serving as a Commissioner is no walk in the park. Believe it or not, we are a demanding group of constituents that often have vastly conflicting agendas. It comes as no surprise that […] Read more
We have been remiss in not posting photos from liquor conferences. Sorry. Reminds us of Nirvana’s All Apologies: What else should I write I don’t have the right What else should I be All apologies Here are photos from the 2016 annual meeting of the National Association of Licensing and Compliance Professionals. And from the 2016 […] Read more
The Department of Revenue recently announced major changes to liquor bonds for Tennessee restaurants, bars, venues and other liquor license holders. Read more here. We expect some chaos, which at least keeps it interesting for us jaded old fools. Speaking of old folks, chaos reminds us of this classic Cold War parody from Get Smart: […] Read more
We follow up our Tennessee high gravity beer news with minutia that only a serious industry member like a Brewery could appreciate. The info in this post is compliments of Bone McAllester Alcoholic Beverage team member Rob Pinson, after consulting with reliable sources. This is all subject to change, as the “law” is being interpreted. […] Read more
On January 1, 2017, the legal definition of beer in Tennessee changes from 5% to 8% alcohol by weight. Meaning that beers with less than roughly 10% alcohol by volume no longer fall into that crazy category known as high gravity beer. In Tennessee, beers stronger than 5% by weight or around 6.5% by volume […] Read more
We often get this question during the holidays? Can my restaurant or bar give a bottle of wine or spirits to a vendor or good customer for Christmas in Tennessee? We recommend not. First, we suspect that an ABC agent will presume that the restaurant is giving away alcohol for off-premises consumption, which is a […] Read more
Food stores licensed to sell wine in Tennessee under WIGS can only stock certain kinds of wine. As WIGS has rolled out, confusion over what can be sold at a grocery has been a major issue. There are no final rules yet from the ABC – its early and we do not expect final rules […] Read more
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