For the rest of the stay-home order, you’ll be able to get pre-mixed cocktails from your favorite bar or restaurant—when you order a meal.
The Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board has made it legal to order a cocktail, so long as it’s purchased alongside a “bona fide complete meal”, which they say must be an entree-sized dish. Cocktails must be sealed in to-go cups or bottles, and must be transported in the trunk of a vehicle (or beyond the reach of the driver) to ensure they are not consumed en-route.
Deliveries or pick-ups must be made by a person who is 21 or over. Restaurants and bars must also post a notice that states the requirements for transport.
Previously, liquor, beer, and wine were permitted for delivery and to-go orders, but not pre-mixed drinks. Many restaurants offered cocktail kits as an alternative, but that required customers to purchase an entire bottle of liquor in its original packaging.
As The Stranger reports, the new allowance is expected to help boost restaurant sales considerably. In a letter to the LCB in April, the Washington Hospitality Association said that for many liquor license holders, cocktails are the only margin that generates an actual profit.
“Cocktails provide a valuable revenue source in the form of high profit repeated in small transactions allowing bars and restaurants to capitalize on the sale of spirits. Selling liquor by the bottle in a channel-pricing state means restaurants and bars cannot compete with grocery store pricing,” the association writes.
The allowance will last through the stay-home order, which is supposed to end June 4.
File photo from Seattle Cocktail Week in 2019
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Great! Now lets leave this as a permanent law even after Covid!
You’ve finally found our 9/11. Take-out cocktails unites a nation in shock!
really good idea. as if cocktails were not already priced over the moon.
You sound like a sourpuss. You need a drink!
not a sourpuss at all, just not stupid enough to pay $8 for something i can make at home for $1
Gotta love covid… liquor sales are through the roof.
Why not all the time???
why at all? what’s the benefit??
For you? Maybe a slightly more pleasant personality. For everyone else? The numbing effect of alcohol will make your sour personality a little more tolerable.
Let me speak slower, what’s the benefit of paying a high price for a “take out” cocktail?
When you can have the same thing at home much cheaper. Please don’t think for a minute paying $8 for a restaurant drink is going to keep that restaurant open. The majority of these shops will never reopen. Thats a shame. Life was never meant to “be fair”.
“Edouardo Jordan, chef and owner of the acclaimed Southern-influenced Ravenna restaurants JuneBaby, Salare, and Lucinda Grain Bar,I’ll only reopen [for dine-in service] if all my expenses are 75 percent off, 100 percent of rent is free and 100 percent of my staff is comfortable with coming back with the understanding that they would be at 50 percent the hours they were at before. Simple math, right? Get it? BBB
Keep your cheap ass home and drink your bottom shelf rum and diet coke while sulking in your own misery. Some of us ARE willing to spend money at local establishments. If you aren’t, then you really have nothing to say about it.
this is fun Frega, i enjoy our dialogue have a Trunpalicious day.
Are premade cocktails essential?
No, but from what I’ve seen the past few months, NOONE in Ballard is actually following the “stay home /essential trips only” order.
Seattles overwhelming sense of self entitlement has been on full display the past 2 months. ESPECIALLY in Ballard.
The benefit is well articulated in the article. “Cocktails provide a valuable revenue source in the form of high profit repeated in small transactions allowing bars and restaurants to capitalize on the sale of spirits. Selling liquor by the bottle in a channel-pricing state means restaurants and bars cannot compete with grocery store pricing,” the association writes.
You can’t bitch about small business being treated poorly by the city and bitch when small businesses are tossed a bone.
Actually, I think he and/or she can, and does!
This Chef disagrees…“Edouardo Jordan, chef and owner of the acclaimed Southern-influenced Ravenna restaurants JuneBaby, Salare, and Lucinda Grain Bar, I’ll only reopen [for dine-in service] if all my expenses are 75 percent off, 100 percent of rent is free and 100 percent of my staff is comfortable with coming back with the understanding that they would be at 50 percent the hours they were at before. Simple math, right?
Get it yet Frega?
Terry, my poopies called and they want their stink back!
i am glad your family has decided to give you call and give you another chance . hopefully this time it works. blessings to you all
Wow you are witty!
correctemundo old chap
If Jordan doesn’t want to semi-open then he shouldn’t. If another restaurant owner wants to take advantage of this opportunity, they should. I will gladly buy an $8 cocktail, hell, I’ll buy a $12 cocktail. I will hand my money over to any small business that will take it right now. What is the benefit to me? I get to have an Aviation or some other cocktail that I wouldn’t make at home. I get to have a meal that I wouldn’t make at home. I get to do my bit to support my neighborhood establishments. My order won’t keep them open, but mine and others will add up.
Your arguing “This Chef disagrees” is small minded, myopic, ridiculous and a strawman.
I have spent years saving for a rainy day. It’s raining and I am ready. Why aren’t you?
“My order won’t keep them open” finally a consensus.
“I have spent years saving for a rainy day. It’s raining and I am ready. Why aren’t you?”
???? Ready for what kind sir.
THANK YOU. Apres le deluge…my trust fund
How are drinks considered essential while gyms are not?
Gym etiquette has, for a long time, been that you wipe down a machine any time you get off of it.
But gyms are closed for another month yet. Many will shut down permanently over this selective b.s.
I have a back condition that is only alleviated by the back extension machine at my gym and was actually recommended by 2 seperate drs. as the best way to manage the problem.
But thats fine, staying healthy should be less of a priority than having your mixed drinks available.
If the cops were smart they’d sit nearby and pull people over for open intoxicants all day long.
Your stupidity has earned you an extended period of back pain. I HAVE SPOKEN!!! Good evening.
Inslee?
Valuable Revenue source? Sorry freeda your clueless, in a nice way
“Mike Maione, owner of Some Random Bar in Belltown, stayed open for takeout orders in April. He ran the numbers and found that even after doing $40,000 in sales last month, his business lost $12,000. If Some Random Bar had closed completely, it would have lost $10,000.”