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Businesses That Work:
Coopersmith's Pub & Brewing
Scott Smith, Owner and Founder
Coopersmith's Pub feels warm, comfortable
and long established. Right in Old Town Fort Collins, with comfortable
outdoor patio dining in good weather, this brewpub makes great
beer and good food that everyone can enjoy. Inside, the expansive
space breaks down into a main dining area, brewery, bar and visible
kitchen. The staff are always courteous and responsive and it's
a good place for a business lunch or unwinding after work. We
met with owner/founder Scott Smith to find out what he and his
partners have done to make Coopersmith's a welcome destination
for both locals and visitors.
ABC:
When did you open your first business and where was it?
Scott:
Personally, my first business was here in Fort Collins. It was
called Spudworks, a potato restaurant. That was in 1982, I believe…My
wife and I moved out here [from Minneapolis] with the idea of
staying six months, and liked it. That was 20 years ago.
ABC:
Once you began planning Coopersmith’s, how long was it before
you opened the doors?
Scott:
Actually, it was quick. At the time, I was working for Concept
Restaurants, which is Old Chicago. That’s where I learned
about beer. I put the World Beer Tour into Old Chicago. I decided
I needed to be doing my own thing by the time I was 30. So, on
my 30th birthday I gave notice at Old Chicago. That was in March
[1989] and we opened [Coopersmith’s] in November. I had done
a little preliminary work before, but not much. We just totally
committed to this.
ABC:
Did you have the pub idea from the beginning?
Scott:
We call ourselves an American Pub. A "pub" is a "public
house", a less formal place. At the time I worked for Concept
I also managed The Prime Minister which was a fine dining restaurant.
My partner, Theo, in the kitchen, was the Kitchen Manager at The
Catacombs [also a fine dining restaurant]. Our first General Manager
was the General Manager at The Catacombs. We were all "fine
dining" guys who said, "The heck with this. Let’s
go have some fun!" We wanted a place that was less formal.
The kind of place where you could come a couple times a week instead
of just on your birthday or anniversary. We patterned it off of
a brew pub down in Denver, Wynkoop’s, which was the first
brew pub in Colorado. Brew pubs weren’t even legal in Colorado
until 1988. They opened in November of 1988. They helped with
this place, and we opened in 1989.
ABC:
Where did you get your menu idea of the newspaper?
Scott:
The newspaper idea we stole from Wynkoop. We use it as a marketing
tool. It’s easy to print; it’s easy to update. We encourage
you to use it to write on. "What’s your phone number?
Here take a menu." Then it sits on your desk and you look
at it and think, "Oh, wow! That sounds good. I’ve got
to go back and get one of those!"
ABC:
Did you have help financing Coopersmith’s?
Scott: Absolutely.
I spent too long working for other people. I had no money when
we opened this business…Everything I owned was leveraged
against this. (No one wanted my first born child. My first born
child, by the way, is Cooper Smith.) This was back in 1989 when
nobody had ever heard of a brew pub…We had 28 different investors
who all owned about 1% each. Since then, we’ve bought a few
of them out so now it’s down to about 22 investors, all of
whom are very happy. It was a friends and family investment.
ABC:
What are some of your out-of-state projects?
Scott: We
helped a brewpub in Prescott, Arizona open. We helped a brewpub
in Columbia, Missouri, and we helped another brewpub in Madison,
Wisconsin. To do a brewpub you have to have business experience,
restaurant experience, brewery experience, and also have access
to capital. Very few people, five years ago, had all those ingredients.
While the brewpub is still a very viable business, the luster
has worn off a little bit. There aren’t a lot of people getting
into it. The people that are, are very big sophisticated companies,
chain restaurants, who don’t need little guys.
ABC:
When you made your business plan, did you have this spot picked
out?
Scott:
Yes. This spot and one other…Brewpubs go back to an historic
tradition. Before prohibition there were 2000 breweries in this
country. Everybody made his or her own beer. We felt very strongly
that it needed to be in an old building. We came in at a good
time. Old Town [Fort Collins] was not doing a lot. We had a very
motivated landlord…We ended up connecting four separate spaces.
The city was great to work with, because they were encouraging
growth. Right place, right time.
ABC:
Have you used any particular marketing strategy?
Scott:
Not really…Anybody who ever opens a restaurant says, "We
want to be the place where everybody is comfortable." After
two months, some market has taken over. It either becomes a yuppie
bar, or a college bar, or a blue-collar bar. It seems to be one
group that takes over. I like to tell people who think, "We’re
a brewery and we don’t need highchairs," that we run
out of highchairs every Saturday. We’re definitely a family
place on the weekend. We get the college students at night, downtown
businesses have lunch. A lot of our marketing is our location.
People often bring people from out-of-town to Old Town and hopefully
they’ll visit Coopersmith’s. We don’t spend a lot
of money on advertising [so] we’ve been described as "marketing
midgets." We just don’t do a lot of advertising. [Instead]
we do a lot in the form of contributions. We sponsor a dance series
at The Lincoln Center. We’re really involved in the arts.
It’s kind of a niche that we’ve chosen.
ABC:
Have you considered expanding or opening another pub?
Scott:
That’s a long story. Prescott, Arizona: Home Run. Columbia,
Missouri: Stand-up Triple. Madison, Wisconsin: Grand Slam. So,
we thought we’d do one ourselves. We went to Greeley. Luckily,
we didn’t open as Coopersmith’s. Even though every Fort
Collins restauranteur that has gone to Greeley has failed, we
thought, "We’re Coopersmith’s! We can do it."...
We failed miserably… That was a very humbling experience.
There’s no reason to push
right now. Life is good. I have plenty of time for golf. Ten years
ago, I had no free time. Eight years ago I had very little. Six
years ago I got a little bit of free time. Now life’s not
too bad. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
ABC: Tell
us a little about the magic behind the beer.
Scott: I’ll
have to give you the abbreviated version. The magic behind all
microbrew beer is that it’s all natural ingredients. There
are only four ingredients in beer: water, malted barley, hops,
and yeast. Since all beer has the basic four ingredients, the
differences come from the yeast you use. There’s a lager
yeast and an ale yeast. They each give you different characteristics
in beer. The other is the different malts and different grains.
The silo we have out front holds 40,000 pounds of pale malt. Pale
malt is the basis for all our beers. Then we have specialty grains
that have been roasted to give different flavors. The beauty of
our beer is the fact that there are no preservatives. There are
three enemies to beer. One is light, one his heat, and one is
time… Our whole shipping process is thirty feet long. It’s
a fresher, purer product and that’s what makes it taste so
darned good! The beauty of a brewpub is that we can play with
flavors. Right now, we have a raspberry wheat on, and we always
have a green chili beer. These are kind of unusual beers as opposed
to traditional pale ales and stouts.
ABC:
Your Christmas Ale is always a big hit.
Scott: The
Christmas Ale is a huge hit. Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, a little
orange zest. It’s a small batch. It’s only brewed for
about three weeks. There’s always a pent-up demand for it.
ABC: What
has been your high point and your low point since opening Coopersmith’s?
Scott: The
high point would be opening day. It was a dream of so many people…
When it became obvious that Fort Collins was going to embrace
this concept, it was a real high point. Another high point is
watching all the people that have been with us all ten years,
which is pretty unusual in this business. I enjoy watching them
get married, buy houses, have children. All based on the fact
that they’re comfortable in their work environment. The low
point was realizing that we were mortal with the failure in Greeley.
Another was realizing that we weren’t going to have double
digit growth every year. We skyrocketed in the beginning and eventually
it evened out.
ABC:
Any advice for our readers?
Scott:
I guess if you ask me, "Why does it work?" It was
the right concept at the right time with the right people.
Having the right people is absolutely vital. Once you find somebody,
teach them all you can and continue to train him or her and motivate
them. If you don’t continue to stimulate them, teach them
more, pay them more and give them new challenges, they’re
going to move on. I think that any person who is savvy enough
to run a business is also savvy enough to own a business if the
right things come into play. They’re potential candidates
for somebody else’s business if you’re not stimulating
them here. Realize that you don’t know everything, and find
someone who has the answers you need. Put the ego on hold. You’re
only as good as your last guest that comes in the door.
September 23, 1999
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