Bricktown Brewery bound for Missouri
Bricktown Brewery continues to expand well beyond downtown Oklahoma City.
The restaurant chain is set to open a new location in Springfield, Missouri, next month, its 14th overall and first in the state. Bricktown Brewery CEO Buck Warfield says the growth is part of an effort to double the company’s size in the coming years.
“Our near-term would be to more than double the size of the company, double the revenue,” Warfield said. “We’ve got a lot of work to be able to do that.”
Bricktown Brewery was started in 1992 in the Oklahoma City district of the same name. In recent years, Warfield and his partners have expanded the restaurant footprint into Tulsa and other cities within the Oklahoma City metro area, as well as into Kansas, Arkansas and Texas. The Springfield location, set to open Aug. 27, will be the chain’s fifth state.
Warfield credits the food, beer and service for allowing the restaurant to expand, and he wants to keep it that way moving forward.
“I’d like this to still be a great place to work and we don’t overthink the thing,” Warfield said. “Craft beer is on a 20-plus years of positive sales growth. Will it continue to do that? I believe it will, so I believe our strategic differentiator is valid and will remain valid going into the future.”
Bricktown Brewery has the capacity to expand its beer
production to accommodate the growing number of restaurants, Warfield said, but that’s not the only challenge the company faces in regard to its beer.
New laws and products
Since the restaurant chain’s beginning, it has been limited in the strength of beer it has been able to brew for consumption due to Oklahoma liquor laws. Those laws are changing, beginning October 1, and Bricktown Brewery will be free to brew stronger beer, but Warfield says the company is taking it slow with any changes to their lineup.
“The near-term change in our business model is to observe the change in the liquor laws and make sure we’ve got the best possible lineup of beer we can put out,” Warfield said.
Some of their beers may be brewed a little stronger, with a fuller flavor, Warfield said. But the changes should be minimal to the company’s mainstays. Where customers will notice a difference is the number of more adventurous seasonal beer selections. Brewers will have a chance to get creative with more small-batch opportunities.
Another opportunity the restaurant is exploring is the development of craft sodas. There is less competition in the market for craft root beer and other sodas, which excites Warfield. “The soda business intrigues me a lot more, craft sodas,” Warfield said. “We could handle quite a bit of craft production with no additional facility development. That’s a revenue stream in the future we may look into.”