Monday Night Brewing’s Jeff Heck on Going into Survival Mode During COVID-19 Crisis

Mar. 30, 2020 at 9:00 PM

Every brewery’s goal right now should be survival, Monday Night Brewing Company co-founder Jeff Heck told Brewbound editor Justin Kendall during an interview last Friday. “If you’re not already in survival mode, you’re weeks behind,” he added. The Atlanta-headquartered craft brewery went into survival mode even before the city issued a mandate to temporarily shutter on-premise businesses in an effort to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus disease known as COVID-19. Monday Night temporarily closed its two Atlanta taprooms, delayed the opening of an outpost in Birmingham, Alabama, and made the difficult decision to furlough nearly 50 employees from its taprooms, as well as sales and marketing teams. “We lost about 55% of our revenue, [it] was gone overnight from our taprooms and our on-premise business,” Heck explained. Heck discussed the existential threat facing small breweries and the entire hospitality business during a crisis few could have expected, how business owners must balance the tension between a lack of cash flow and the need to stock up, the future of the industry on the other side of the crisis and more during the above video interview with Kendall.