Since we joined the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce late last year, we have had the pleasure of meeting and interacting with many small business owners in the South Bay area. Through these interactions I have been invited to join several service clubs and business networking groups. While I wish I had the time and money to join every service club the fact is I do not, so I volunteer my services to help publicize their fundraisers. As far as networking groups are concerned, I can definitely see the value in them but they all seem to come with obligations I can not meet. This would include mandatory weekly meetings that might meet at 7:00 AM for breakfast or lunch at a Sizzler or something along those lines. My schedule just does not allow for that kind of commitment.
As you [may] know, in May Tanya and I participated in American Craft Beer Week and in the process became aware of several microbreweries, brewpubs and gastropubs in the South Bay area. I got the opportunity to meet many of the owners and well as several brewmasters as well. I could not help but notice that as Craft Beer Week progressed, we started seeing a lot of the same people at the various locations. In the subsequent weeks since then the number of people that we would meet steadily increased. That is when Tanya got a brilliant idea; we would start our own business networking group, but add a twist to it. We decided to name it Business N Beer.
Business N Beer is a different kind of business networking group. We have no mandatory meetings, we have no dues and we do not limit membership to one person per business field. We will not make you get up early for work, or rush you through lunch. What we will do is visit various microbreweries, brewpubs and gastropubs in the area. Our meetups will be weekly, at different locations. The meets will be every Thursday at 6:00 PM. We have chosen the locations carefully and are spreading them around the South Bay so that it is always close for those that live and work in the area. Your only requirement is that you come with the intent of enjoying a craft beer with others that are like-minded and be ready to possibly do some business with some of the attendees.
The first meeting will be this Thursday, July 12 at Select Beer Store located at 1613 S. Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo Beach. Select Beer offers about 13 different craft beers on tap and has over 300 different varieties of bottled beer available to drink there or to take away. We discovered Select Beer Store on our second day of American Craft Beer Week and it quickly became one of our favorite locations to find a wide assortment of craft brews; I am sure you will enjoy it.
Our schedule, so far, includes July 19 – The Brewery at Abigaile, Hermosa Beach; July 26 – Monkish Brewing, Torrance; August 2 – Strand Brewing, Torrance and August 9 – The Rockefeller, Hermosa Beach. We have some special treats coming up at some of these locations, so if you are a small business owner that enjoys craft beer and networking with others you should take a moment to visit BusinessNBeer.com or our Facebook page so that you can keep up with scheduled events. It also helps if we have an idea how many will be attending so we can be sure to have a section set off for us that is sufficient without being too big.
I hope to see you there.