58 NOFFLA NEWS
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Back to Black!
Joel Durand of Blackrock Cellar, which was named Dublin Off-Licence of the Year 2021, explains how the pandemic has transformed the team’s online offering, and shares some interesting insights on the store’s best-sellers STORE PROFILE Blackrock Cellar, 23 Rock Hill, Blackrock, Co. Dublin Store size: 350sq m Number of staff: 9-11 Opening hours: Monday - Saturday 10.30am-8pm; Sunday and bank holidays 12.30pm-8pm Q: What are the factors that led to you winning a NOffLA Award and how do you stand out from competitors? A: I think it’s mainly because from our opening nine years ago, we have been thriving at being different. ‘Not the usual’ has been and will always be our motto. That’s in the products we sell, the passionate staff as well as the look of the shop. It takes more work, time and cost. All the staff are on some level of WSET training and participate in shop-guided tastings as well as importers’ portfolio tastings, so their knowledge of our range is at a good level. It is important because we have an extensive range of fine wines, craft beers, spirits, cocktails and fine foods that is constantly renewing. You will rarely find all these in big multiples and vice versa. With time, we have gained the trust of our customers that are now ready to listen to our friendly staff’s advice, trying different and newly discovered gems. Q: How has Covid-19 affected your business and how have you navigated the challenges involved? A: Like everybody, we had a challenging 18 months. It got really busy up to when we closed in early April at the first peak of the pandemic. It was getting very dangerous and we all needed a break to regroup and plan. After consulting with managers, we reopened two weeks later, working behind closed doors only doing deliveries or collection on a short four-day week from 12-6pm. We hired a shop driver
ShelfLife August 2021 | www.shelflife.ie
for that period. Working (with a mask) behind closed doors is claustrophobic, needless to say the level of stress and temper was quite high and we had lots of discussions between us regarding what to do. We were happy to finally reopen slowly to a limited number of masked customers by mid-May. That was on a longer six days, 12-8pm Monday-Saturday schedule. We reopened on Sundays by the end of July 2020. Before Covid we used to close at 10 every evening but we have no plan to reopen that late. Our customer habits have changed, and we don’t see the need to be open that late anymore. Due to the closure of pubs and restaurants during the ongoing lockdowns, we have been busier than normal and the three new staff members we hired last summer had lost their restaurant jobs. They replaced two staff that left us early in the pandemic and one that stayed on the payroll working from home on social media and our website. At the start of 2020 we were looking at transforming our website from a webpage to an online shop so when Covid arrived we were caught a bit unprepared. Taking lots of orders and advising over the phone or by email is quite a different job to serving in-shop customers and we all had to learn new skills quickly. Meanwhile, with the help of our web designer, myself taking product pictures and a member of staff working from home, we installed most
The NOffLA Dublin Off-Licence of the Year 2021 Award is sponsored by Bombay Sapphire (Edward Dillon)
Blackrock Cellar is renowned as a craft beer specialist with Kinnegar being the number one seller within that category
of the wines and beers on the future online shop. The website was finally turned on in October 2020. I have to give credit to my staff who are amazing; it is not easy what they are doing and I’m very grateful they stuck with us during the whole period. In July last year we introduced a weekly Covid bonus risk on the wages that is still running today, it is the best decision we took during the pandemic for staff morale and retention. Q: What are your current bestselling brands/ranges in-store and why do you believe these products are proving popular? A: As hinted earlier, big brands aren’t really our bread and butter. We are only keeping a necessary minimum to complete our selection; it is becoming a more and more marginal part of the business. When minimum pricing comes into play, we will only have
According to Joel Durand, customers are becoming more adventurous and at the higher end of the market, are not afraid to spend more on trying out a staff recommendation
one product to delist. Regarding what sells, we have been a craft beer specialist from the start and in the beer section, that is what we overwhelmingly sell. Half the craft beers now sold are from independent Irish breweries with Kinnegar number one for a few years now. For the rest of the beer, classic German and Belgium are deservedly coming back to the fore in these past few years while the US and UK are down. Even if pale ale and IPAs are still strong, our customers are now moving away from them and getting more adventurous in their beer styles. For wines, you can more or less take the national wine sale pyramid of top selling producer countries and turn it upside down to know what we sell the most. Chile is at the bottom and France on top, Spain second, Italy third. The tendency to buy better wine (and beer) has accelerated with the lockdown. There was a sense of: “Whatever happens at least I had a nice bottle’’. At the lower end, the customer is now spending the €2-3 extra to get a good wine compared to a budget one. At the higher end, people are getting more adventurous, and are not afraid to spend more trying something different that we have recommended. For example, South African or German Pinot Noir versus Burgundies. Rosé sales have increased five-fold in the past three years and customers don’t see a problem in spending as >>
