Great Customer Service is Always On Tap at San Angelo Brewpub

EMILY: I’m Emily Washcovick, Yelp’s Small Business Expert. Typically I share a story featuring conversations with a business owner as well as someone who wrote them a Yelp review. This week we’re kicking off a mini series that I’m calling The San Angelo series. Some of you long time listeners may remember reviewer Josh H. He’s shared his experience with a weight lifting gym as well as a favorite brewery slash restaurant. He’s a black badge Yelp elite which is a special designation for Yelp users who have been actively reviewing businesses and contributing content to Yelp for over a decade. Josh loves finding local gems, and even more than that – he loves getting to know the staff and the ownership.

He wanted to do a series of interviews to shine a light on the incredible businesses in the San Angelo TX area. It’s a small town, hours from any of the larger cities that you probably think of when you think of TX. But that doesn’t create any shortage of unique places creating memorable experiences for their customers. Today we sit down with owner of the SoCo Taphouse – or as Josh and Brandon share – the Cheers of Beers.

JOSH: It’s the cheers of beers. It is addicting. I would put it that way. You go back for the people in the diversity of people and conversations as much as you do the beer, truly.

I would describe SoCo tap room as very simple and straightforward. It’s welcoming as soon as you come in, cuz as you come in the entrance, you’ve got all the seating at the primary bar area, which is just this long area of seats.

And you just immediately are welcomed by the regulars as well as the bar staff, which are always familiar faces, and they usually know you by first name, they welcome ya in.

It’s dog friendly. So there’s always a few friendly dog faces that you see when you come in too. They’ll give you a glance and a smile. It’s not like a glance in a, who is this? It’s a glance and, Hey Tim. Hey, Carol, how are you? Type thing. And you just see repeat faces every time. You’re instantly welcome there with conversation as well as good beer. It’s a very homey type place, I guess I would say. You feel like you belong there type thing.  It is not a huge place, but it doesn’t need to be. Cuz even when it’s busy, it’s got a good positive vibe to it.

And it’s never so busy that you’re shoulder to shoulder or anything like that, or you’re not gonna get served quickly. I’ve heard other people say it’s kinda like this Cheers feeling.  You go there a couple times – everybody knows your name. And you’re gonna see at least a couple familiar faces every time you go in and you’re gonna have a good conversation there.

So just that welcoming hometown atmosphere as well as good craft local beer is what you’re gonna find. There’s also some bigger names, too, but as somebody who’s a picky beer drinker, which I absolutely self-identify as a picky beer drinker. They’ve got ciders. They’ve got kombuchas. They’ve got light beers. They’ve got dark beers. They’ve got barley wine.  What else?  Anything local to Texas, as well as some of the bigger names, it is definitely more Texas oriented, but there’s something for everyone. I tell people if they say they’re not a beer drinker, I’m like, you haven’t been to SoCo and you haven’t tried enough to find that something that fits your palate. So just all around great place to go for people and beer.

EMILY: Brandon, with that consumer perspective, what holes would you fill if you were to describe to someone, the elevator pitch of who you are and what you guys do?

BRANDON: Josh hit on the head. I mean, that is SoCo. It’s warm, it’s inviting – we’ve got the reds, the yellows, the smorgasbord of random assortments on the walls. We’ve got tap handles from beers of the past and beers of the new. I have a can up there from Billy beer. From was it Reagan’s brother or Carter’s brother – I’ve got so many cool collections.

It kind of reminds you of somebody’s house. Like their little shack in the back little pub where everybody comes and gathers in the neighborhood and you hang out and you drink a few beers at the end of the day. Talk about your problems in life. And you talk about the successes in life.

And everybody comes from such a different background and it’s such a unique feeling. I get goosebumps talking about it every time, cuz it’s such a unique place.  It’s something weird that we’ve created that no matter how diverse you are and how different you are than anybody else, everybody comes there.

And we all have our little quirks and we all talk about our problems and we all get along so well. And it is – it’s like the cheers of beers. And everybody just kind of knows everybody. And if you’re not a regular. I can assure you if they get to know your name and everybody starts talking to you, the regulars will bring you in and they’ll welcome you with open arms.

It’s just, it’s a great place. And it’s right on the corner of downtown San Angelo. So it’s got a sweet little patio on the outside, and we’re on the corner of all the traffic by all the shops and everything. So people always see us there. They come by lots of foot traffic. They interact with a lot of the unique knick knacks that we have in the inside. As well as the murals on the outside and our artistic tables and stuff like that, and the wood everywhere, it’s a very unique place. It’s one of those things you gotta see it, to believe it.

EMILY: I need to know how you got started. Was this a family thing? Did you always wanna own a tap house? How did you get going?

BRANDON: SoCo opened in 2015, March of 2015. But before that, it used to be a place called Joe’s Brewhouse. And it was one of the first craft beer places in all of San Angelo. And I used to be a regular there.

The bartender at the time was Mark. He was my really good friend. Mark still is my good friend. Got to talking one day and I’m like, Hey man, you understand business and finance, why don’t we start our own bar? I said, that’s a good idea, man.

So we kicked that can around for about a year, year and a half. And then eventually Joe’s Brewhouse came available and the guy wanted out and just said, Hey guys, I’ll sell it to you. And we said, then this is a great dream. So Mark and I approached his dad with the business plan. Mike and Mike, Mark, and I teamed up and renovated the place a little bit, made it a little bit more friendly, inviting, and opened the doors in March of 2015 to one of our longtime regulars, who was our first customer, Mr. Mickey.  And I’m sure Josh has seen him around there a time or two. Mickey’s been there since day one, is a wonderful regular. And since then our motto’s always been bringing beer back to the people. Because at the time that we opened a lot of craft beer, places were taken advantage of people, it was the new hip thing. And so you could get away charging nine, $10 for a pint and keep in mind, this was seven years ago, like inflation’s happened. So it’s a lot more expensive now, obviously. We decided we didn’t like that. So we started with a pretty simple model. It was four or five, six bucks a beer man, come on in, hang out, let’s chit chat.

We weren’t in this to make a whole bunch of money. We’re in this to have good times and good vibes and start something different. Bringing beer back to the people was our slogan. And that’s how we did it. And just over time, it’s grown into this wonderful place. We were able to retain a lot of the regulars from Joe’s Brewhouse. We were able to change our look up and make it a little bit different, more inviting, make it almost family friendly. A lot of people do bring their kids in, hang out on the patio, play the little ring game and stuff like that.

And we made it definitely dog friendly cuz that’s the new world we live in. We love our puppers. We’re a sucker for strays. We’re a sucker for animals, we just love everything. So kind of morphed into this great environment like that.

We get some food trucks come out every now and then, but that’s pretty much how we got the start and we’ve just been rock and rolling since 2015, man.

EMILY: You’ve spent time in business both before and quote unquote after the pandemic. You’ve lived in both worlds, right? I don’t like to talk too much about the pandemic but I would like to hear about what you did to survive as a small business, when so many had to shut down. It seems like your customers and your community really helped. Are you back to what you’d call a more regular amount of business now?

BRANDON:  We still live in a world where people are scared to get out some, a little bit. We haven’t returned back to a hundred percent, that I know. We’re more like 90.

We were able to navigate the pandemic pretty well. So the way the state of Texas works is there’s a unique license called the brew pub license, which we actually have. It affords us the ability to essentially sell off premise. So we were able to sell packaged beer to go. We just couldn’t have anybody in our establishment. We were lucky because technically our patio wasn’t classified as our establishment. So people could come and buy to-go beers. I could open my front door and they could sit outside of my patio or in the pavilion and everything, hang out and have a beer.

And there was really nothing that anybody could stop ’em from doing that. And so our regulars figured that out really quickly. And they came on their normal days. We just handed them a to go cup of beer out the door and they went and sat down and hung out. We were able to fortunately retain our employees through most of it.

Obviously our sales took a hit and we weren’t 100% what we used to be, but we were able to keep the doors open. Well, so to speak. Keep it moving by having that unique licensure and being able to sell stuff outside of a building and sell it to go really when a lot of other bars in beer places in Texas or in San Angelo to be specific, really couldn’t. So I think there was only two or three of us that were actually open the whole pandemic and we survived  by the luck, but Hey, we did pretty good in it. We’re happy to still be around, we’re hoping to get back to a hundred percent, but we’re better than we were two years ago.

So that’s all that matters.

JOSH: One of the cool things about SoCo that I like that again, makes it unique is speaking of the structure and am ambience of what’s there is that there is like vintage everything all over the place from route 66 and  things from decades ago and beer cans from decades ago, bottle tops, coasters from different breweries that have been through there at some point, very throwback, very rustic. And I don’t mean that in an old way, but just rustic, like old school. The vintage stuff, the memorabilia that’s up there, the signage, neon signs, that kind of thing gives it its own. I mean, you’re gonna find something when you go in. The cider Saturday cider slash sour Saturday was my favorite. But, correct me if I’m wrong, Brandon, but it’s bring your own food. There’s usually a food truck outside that partners with them most days of the week. But if you have your own food, you can bring it in which I like, cuz sometimes I want to eat dinner or lunch with my meal, whatever it might be.

And I can throw it down with a good beer or a kombucha too. And most other places don’t allow that.  You’re gonna have to eat their food on their menu if you have it. Whereas here you bring whatever you want, eat on the patio and have your beer with it, which just gives you more latitude with how you come there and how you spend your time there when you can actually bring in your own food too.

And it does help. You can bring your own pups also..

BRANDON: Yeah! Yeah, you can bring your own food.  We provide food. Sometimes we’ll maybe buy pizzas here and there.  We do partner with food trucks. That’s absolutely correct as well. and speaking of the vintage stuff, have you noticed on the top behind the bar wall?

But there’s actually, those are real steins from Germany, like way, way back. They’re actually from my business partner or previous business partner, Mark’s, grandfather, who’s from Germany and there’s actually the plates up there and everything too, a hundred percent.

JOSH: Oh, I didn’t. I noticed that they all looked like authentic steins. Cause I lived over in Europe and that was a big thing there. And I told my wife and everyone that brought in there, I’m like, I would die for one of those steins. I want one of those steins right there now. Now I get the backdrop on that.

BRANDON: They’re authentic. And they’re family heirlooms essentially. So they’re pretty unique and  they’ve  been hidden away up there as you notice all the other bottles that accumulate over the time. So you have to look for ’em a little bit, but they’re there and they’re authentic. So it’s cool, man. But yeah, the vintage stuff is really.

JOSH: That is really cool.

EMILY: That is really cool. And Josh and I are both from Wisconsin, so of course, Josh, we’ve done two episodes together that are breweries. I just realized that today I was like, Josh and I have done four episodes together. And two of us wanted to, or…

JOSH: Beer is a part of our DNA. We can’t do anything about that. That’s how it is.

EMILY: That’s so true. But when you talk about the old cans and stuff,  it just takes me right to the lake house town that my family is in. And there’s three bars, like all right, across from each other and they have the coolest, different collections of old school stuff. And you go and compare the old ham cans and stuff. That’s been like pulled from the bottom of a lake and just random, random old school,

BRANDON: like Pearl and stuff where you had to peel the top off, not just the pop thing, man. Funny story about that one time. Right? So we had a Billy beer. That was up on the shelf. That was it’s unopened. And so this guy and his friend come in and this Saturday afternoon, I remember this, like it was yesterday, it was about two or three o’clock and they were asking about the old cans and I’m like, yeah, I was like, one is actually full.

And the guy was like, listen, dude, I’ll pay you a hundred bucks right now. And I wanna drink it. And I’m like, dude, there’s no way that’s good. That’s 40 years old. And I was like, no way. And this guy, I kid you not, gives me a hundred dollars, takes this beer and he drinks it in front of me. I’m like, dude, no, that’s so old.

He wanted to do it because of the nostalgia. He was like, I just, I’ve never done this before. I’ve seen them. I lived back in the eighties and I just wanna just peel this open and drink it and like props to you, man. Yeah. Oh my God.

EMILY: Yeah. Was he able to stick around for another pint?

BRANDON: It was totally fine. It was totally, yeah, he was there all afternoon.

EMILY: That is hysterical. Let’s talk about the staff. SoCo Taphouse has built such a vibrant and inviting group of regulars, and that’s in part due to the people helping it run.  Josh, can you talk about how the staff helps create the SoCo Taphouse feel that you’ve described?

JOSH: The feeling you get when you’re in there at SoCo, it does come down to the staff because they help to sustain and maintain that vibe that I think Brandon is going for when you know, he started this. Brandon, but Gavin. She was awesome. She was just great. She embodied everything that SoCo was because she was one of the people. She’s a San Angelan. She’s one of us locals that has lived there most of her life.  She knows the town, the city, the people, the vibe, the likes, and the dislikes.

She knows the gossip and those kinds of things, and she helped to foster that. And she was the kind of person that as soon as you walked in, she again, Hey Josh, how you doing? Good to see you again. Whoever it was made sure to call you by your first name. And she knew what your favorite beers were.

She could even remember details like, from two weeks ago, by the way that sours back in today. And I’d be like, oh, you remembered that. That’s awesome. Well, I’m gonna get that today. I haven’t seen her for a while but anyone else that’s been in there, whether it’s a one off, like a new face or some of the new people I’ve gotten to know in just recent weeks and months – they foster the same attitude. That same character trait of keeping that togetherness of people where they know they just casually engage in conversation at the bar and then, but the people at the end of the table, next thing you know, you’re on their discussion about movies.

The people next to you, you’re talking about something political and then the people three over, you’re talking about some new thing that came out, cars or vehicles or motorcycles. Doesn’t matter who it is. You could just jump in with its conversation, with anyone. And it’s just so welcoming and it just naturally happens cuz that’s the kind of people that go there. That’s just what’s built into the fabric of SoCo. And I think that’s really pretty cool and the staff help support that, but it is just part of the attraction. Like you said, that comes in the door.

BRANDON: Yeah. A lot of that is a staffing choice. And so we try to find the best people and  we don’t have a lot of turnover. In fact, the people that work there have worked there for a very long time. They’ve been dedicated and loyal to us. And Devin – Devin still does work there.

JOSH: I said, Gavin. Yeah, Devin, my bad.

BRANDON: Devin. So Devin still does work there. She’s had some stuff going on though. So she works a lot less.

JOSH: Oh good – I thought she was gone. That really makes me very happy.

BRANDON: She’s still there. Yeah, Devin is a staple. And in fact, Devin started out in the craft beer community and she worked at Joe’s when it was Joe’s before it was SoCo in 2013, 14.  When my business partner Mark stepped away, we were very fortunate to get Devin to come on board and help us change and remold and make that structure again into what it is today. And she’s been an integral part in all of that. And it does, like you said, Josh, she remembers your name.

She remembers what beer usually like. She can say exactly what you want. Like, what are you feeling today? I got this number 12, this beer. Come on an IPA, even something nice and fruity flavorful. Got you here, got you excited! Like she’s very good at it.  She’s the best in town at craft beer.

I mean, she’s one of the only cicerones I believe in San Angelo. So she knows her stuff.

JOSH: Oh, that does not surprise me cuz she knows beer inside and out.

BRANDON: Inside and out! And so that’s a big thing too about our staff members is we try to pick the people that love craft beer, because if you come into the place and you wanna work there and you don’t love craft beer, you’re not gonna exactly have the greatest way of interacting with the people, with the bar regulars. Talking about beer or giving ’em something good to drink. Because coming in and being greeted with a good smile, somebody telling you your name, or remembering what you like, that interaction, it hooks you from the beginning, right?

As a customer, you no longer feel like a consumer or a customer. You feel like a guest, a guest in our house and SoCos house a guest.

Our job is to make you hang out and feel even the most welcome. And let’s find you a good beer that we know you’re gonna like. So it’s almost as good as sitting on your couch at home after a long day of work and cracking a cold one, we’re gonna make that feeling exactly like that at SoCo.

And that’s what we try to strive for. And it starts with the people too, not just the atmosphere where you are right? Absolutely. They are wonderful and welcoming. and that’s why we really try to make sure we’re very, very, very, very, very, very stringent on who we hire.

EMILY: So Brandon, just to expand on it a little bit, can you talk about hiring and also curating that culture? Obviously it’s a fun place to be, so I can see how the employees are happy. But they are working. So there’s something that has to do with the way you lead or maybe like the vibe that you want them to carry out that kind of influences that culture that you have?

BRANDON: I think it starts with how I train or how we hire managers or what we look for in people. I was very fortunate cuz I’ve spent in my long time in customer service and bartending restaurant industries, I was very fortunate to be corporate trained.

I understand a lot about how to be successful with customer service and how to be successful with the right way to approach things and the wrong way to approach things. And we look at it like that when we try to hire people is, how well do you fit?  And one of the things we do before we hire somebody is we say, Hey, why don’t you come in and bartend a couple of times. Or come in and hang out. We’ll tip you out, you’re not gonna be employed, but we’ll tip you out, see how you mesh. And then we get feedback from our regulars. Like what’d you think about? So, and so what were your thoughts? And then we evaluate ’em and go from there.

I’m gonna say it’s, non-traditional hiring kind of standpoint, but, obviously,  we do our best to make sure we’re equal across the board for everybody.  But we’ve gotta find that right fit for us too, because at the end of the day, for us to be successful and for ultimately that bartender or beer tender to be successful, they’ve gotta fit in too.

And if that fit isn’t there, we just talk to ’em about other opportunities. Hey, you wanna help us in the brew room? You wanna help us maybe here and there, do some bar backing? Maybe being a beer tender’s not right for you. You do love this environment and you fit in. Let’s talk about helping brewing beer. Let’s talk about something else.

It starts really with that customer service, and making sure that everything kind of meshes right, that the regulars you get along with. That you understand the craft beer, that you understand these certain atmospheres, and you really think about the customer and the guest first and the environment that you’re putting on and to make your best foot forward, to make sure that they have a good time and they enjoy themselves.

EMILY: You had mentioned earlier, obviously the role of helping the guests choose the right beer.  I think some people come in and they know what they want, and other people might be overwhelmed by all the taps. That is the thing – to have so many choices. Can you talk about that role and knowledge of beer and how that also cultivates the environment?

Cuz you’re right. It’s a friendly face, but it is being able to give a recommendation, talking about the different options. Things like that?

BRANDON: I’ll walk you through the very first question we usually ask people when they come in, we’ll ask ’em what they’re drinking. And a lot of times what people say is ‘I’ll take an IPA.’ Okay. Do you want hazy? Do you want to double? What are you feeling? And then we navigate what’s on tap. So we do have 26 different taps and they rotate almost nightly.  They’ll change from today to tomorrow. Just like snapping a finger.

We start with the question of what are you drinking today? And a lot of people that come in,  sometimes they just don’t know. They’re like, oh, I don’t know. I’ve never been here before. There’s a lot of overwhelming amount. We circle back to the question, well, what do you usually drink?  And then we start there and we build up from it. What do you usually drink? And then, say somebody comes in, they drink a Coors light. Okay, well I’m gonna find a beer that you’re gonna like today. And that’s, what’s gonna happen. We’ll go through and we’ll taste every single one of these taps and we’re gonna figure it out, buddy. Because that’s what we are here for at SoCo. To bring beer back to the people and introduce you to something you’ve never had before.

And so Coors light drinker comes in. I’m like, okay, cool. You like light beer, so let’s start with  a lager maybe. And depending on what kind of weather it is, if it’s a cool day or cool outside, it’s raining,  I’ll hit a light beer drinker with a dark beer.

You’d be shocked to know that a lot of people actually that drink light beer, do love dark beer because the perception of it is that it’s bitter and it doesn’t taste good. And it’s heavy on your stomach. Well, that’s not true. You can get a Porter or you can get something lighter and you really still get a full flavor from it.

And a lot of people are just like, wow.  To get back to the point is, we start there. We ask what you normally drink. We ask what you’re feeling. We try to see what your mood is or what you really do, what you regularly drink. And then we use our skill sets, our knowledge of understanding of beer and lagers, light beers, dark beers, IPAs, sours, ciders, whatever it might be and what we have on tap to find the best fit for you. And we’re not shy about letting you taste different ones. We absolutely love it. we encourage it. Taste a little bit of this, taste a little bit of that, to really find something that you’re gonna enjoy.

JOSH: It was interesting to hear that end because that is exactly what I have been exposed to on the consumer side, the way he described it. So if that’s the game plan, I’ve seen it fold out on the field, so to speak. They will let you sample eight or nine different samplers right there to find out what you want.

They don’t want you to buy a beer just for the sake of buying a beer. I’ve gotten the vibe they want you to find the one you truly like and you’re going to enjoy drinking. There is a very approachable and not intimidating act of beer education going on when you go there, if you are a newbie or you’re just fixated on one type of beer, they’re willing to expand your palate more by letting you try other beers, asking what you want.

BRANDON: And that’s what it’s about. If we can get people to find something that they like, that could, if the guest comes in and they find something that they like, they’re gonna come back, you know? And they’re gonna get that feeling of, even if I was lost last time I went in there and I couldn’t really find something. It took five, 10 minutes to get a beer that I liked and running short on time, I might have had one.

The guest ultimately thinks when they come back, they did it last time. They helped me find something I like! They’re gonna do it again for me. And we do it a hundred percent. We have for the last seven and a half years. And that’s one thing we pride ourselves on. We are not scared about giving out more samples.

In fact, it’s not uncommon for us to put a beer on tap that’s new and just start handing out samples everywhere. And we love doing it. You know, like, Hey, try this, try that. If you like that, you’ll like this, you know, We, we want you to find something that you enjoy drinking. So you come back and you end up like Josh, you love Saturdays and you find ciders and you’re having a great time, you know? Cuz that’s our goal, is expanding people’s horizons of beer. There’s so many different flavor opportunities out there. And so many different profiles that you’re gonna find something you like. It just takes a little bit of time and we’ll help you get there.

EMILY: Brandon, can you walk me through your setup in the taphouse and brewery? I’d like to get an idea of how it’s laid out.

BRANDON: So if you were to walk in the doors, like Josh was describing, there’s a long haul, like a long bar. And on the back side towards the windows going out towards downtown, there’s more like a bar top. And then right off to the right side of the bar top, there’s this little brew area. And actually we’re moving in the back now, but it’s right there. I mean, it’s not a huge system. So we’re not really a brewery, we’re a, I guess you can call us a micro brewery or a brew pub, to classify. We have a three barrel system, and it’s not the fanciest.. Nothing to write home about. But it makes some good beer. It’s in a small little room and it’s incredibly hot when you’re brewing beer.  Like I said, it’s a three barrel system, so we don’t have the ability with only one fermenter to put a lot of output.

We believe in quality, you know, not quantity. When we first started, we were doing quantity. Trying to expand, trying to have a lot of taps. And we discovered very quickly that we were reaching too far. We had a lot of beers that we put out that just were not good. We just weren’t happy with our product.

So we took a few years off of brewing actually, nah, probably about a year and a half and revamped our system and replaced a lot of parts. Refined our process. At that time I brought Dave, he’s one of our brewers, in. He actually works at the military base. And Dave’s been helping me out. He’s got 20 years of experience, and he’s doing a lot of brewing now since I’ve been in and out of San Angelo. But, we kind of really started focusing on quality and using new techniques. And we’ve been putting out a pretty solid amount of beer. I mean, anytime, any given day, there’s anywhere from, you know, two to five of our beers on tap.

And they’re usually all really good beers. You’re not getting anywhere from lagers  IPAs. I think we’ve got a watermelon cider now too. We forgot how to do a little bit of ciders, dark lagers,  We’ve also experimented with some hefeweizens and stuff like that. But for the most part, we brew what we like to brew and what we think we can brew good. And we just try to keep it quality, not quantity. And that’s our motto.

Abrew day, just a brew takes us, you know, 10 to 14 hours. And then you’re talking about, you got to clean, cause you’ve gotta carbonate. You gotta do all these other things. So total start to finish time – before that beer gets on tap, there’s probably 26 to 28 hours worth of labor that goes in to get ’em done, but we do everything there. We ferment it, we carbonate it. We brew it. You name it. We got kegs in the back. I think we’ve got 70 or 80 of our own kegs. Matter of fact, but it’s all done there. We do a full grain. We don’t do extract, like some people do. We do full grain builds, which is pretty cool. We actually take the grain that we use from our brew and we have a trade out with some local farmers. They’ll come pick up the spent grain. Cause all we’ve done is take the sugars out of it. And it’s still good for feeding chickens and stuff. Right? So we actually have some farmers that come and they’ll pick up our buckets of spent grain and then they bring us back fresh eggs.

It’s a pretty good little trade we got going. So nothing goes to waste within, so we enjoy that.

EMILY: That kind of businesses-helping-other-businesses support system mentality in partnering with local farmers can be invaluable in not only creating community, but helping to secure your business. Working with other like-minded businesses can do wonders in helping you make your business feel like a bedrock of the community.

Josh, I’d love for you to read your Yelp review for us, so we can discuss reviews and their place in a small business operation. So when you’re ready…

JOSH: I love this place. Smaller, sure but with outside table seating, it makes up for the lack of space inside. Bring your own food as you please. Dog friendly as well. Always good local company to strike up a condo with is what you’ll find here. The woman who works there, Devin, most all the time is super kind and helpful with matching you up with what you want or what you’re looking for. You gotta be sure to score their killer weekly specials they have every day of the week. My favorites are the Tuesday flight night – $7, all four flight samples. And the cider Saturday. $4, any pin of cider you want. They always have four to five ciders running, which is what I love since it’s nice to have options to go from here. Overall, a great downtown tap room for beer.

EMILY: Thanks Josh! Let’s talk a little about why you review. What’s your motivation for taking the time to share your experience and review a place like SoCo Taphouse?

JOSH: My big reason for reviewing a place like this is being that it is a very local spot for me to go to. I could walk there in five minutes, from my downtown loft I lived in and now it’s still just a 10 minute drive from where I live now.

It’s just, it’s such a local mainstay spot for socialization, for good craft beer. I want to support that because I, as a conser, want this kind of thing to be able to go do as a social outlet. As a place to just find good beer. So by going and giving them my patronage, I’m showing my support for a local business like this. I do the review so other people can see it as well as, you know, an interested consumer that might have not been there, or maybe they’ve only been there once. But either way they see the review, they can see it’s positive, they’re gonna get some good reasons for why they should go to get an equal experience.

And now I’ve helped to foster and grow that same interest in a local business. I’m pretty sure they’re gonna go and experience the same thing I did and become a regular. The more people that experience that positivity, they’re gonna keep going back as well.

And now we are collectively, hopefully as a result of just a single review that’s positive, keeping a local business in play like that. Really that is the root of why I do reviews. I want people to see them become interested in going themselves and then having the same experience. And hopefully they tell other people about it too.

It’s just the force multiplier effect. My review. They see it, they want it, they go, they review. Other people, see it, they want it, they go. This really is a very, just by definition, a San Angelo place. You’re gonna see San Angelo people and that’s, that’s what makes it, one of a kind place you won’t find anywhere.

EMILY: Okay, Brandon, I wanna hear your perspective on reviews. I feel like as a bar / tap house, there’s sometimes a mixed feeling about that, but you sound like you come from a long, long line of customer service, which has an interesting relationship with online reviews.

BRANDON: So I love reviews, good or bad. I mean, coming from a long line of customer service, I believe that you learn a lot about reviews. One, you learn if you’re not doing what you need to be doing properly. If you get negative ones, okay. That allows us to reevaluate as a business. You’re like, hey, so and so employee A, why did we miss the mark that day? What happened? What was going on with you? What was going on with the bar? Why was our service not as good as it could have been?

The other side of that is, I love when I see the positive ones! I can share with our employees and say, Hey, you did a great job, man. Somebody left you an awesome review. I believe that feedback and criticism – positive or negative, is a learning opportunity. And I’ve always been that way. Like you said, I come from a long line of customer service and any review, good or bad, can teach you something and, and you can learn from it and grow from it. And being in the customer service industry and watching the blow up of, you know, Yelp and all these other review companies. You’ve gotta learn from them. You know, obviously the negative ones I take more seriously and I try to make sure that if I get a negative review, I reach out and I touch it. And I respond back because I think that when people reply with a negative review, they just wanna be heard.  They wanna know that they’ve left their mark and they wanna say, Hey, this was bad. And I wanna follow up with it. And I want to actually figure out what was wrong. And I wanna apologize. And I wanna bring you back in and I wanna buy you a beer. Let’s sit down and let’s talk. And I’ve actually done that a few times and I’ve had some people go back and change the reviews.

They’ve said, Hey, you know, might have been a two star. I was very upset, but I went back and changed it to three because customer service was great. You know, they called, they reached out to me. They tried to fix it and they said, I’m sorry. I apologize that we had a bad day. That’s not every day for us. Come back and give us another shot.I promise you you’ll like it.

So, from a business standpoint, I love reviews. The good and the bad, like I said. It’s a learning opportunity at the end of the day or it’s a praising opportunity. And so I always appreciate them in any way, shape or form.

EMILY: I think a lot of business owners wanna get to that point, but the emotion between a criticism and  seeing it as a benefit is tough. Do you have any advice about that? Like how do you remove the immediate, visceral reaction and look at it as feedback and admit to having a bad day? I think a lot of people have a hard time with that.

BRANDON: So I had a hard time with that. Lemme tell you. When you grow a business and you put time and effort into something, it’s almost like your child, you don’t want to hear the negative things about it. You don’t want to hear somebody say your baby’s ugly. You don’t wanna hear somebody say that you’re doing a very bad job. You get very emotionally attached to what you’ve built, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Let me say that there’s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you’ve gotta take yourself back from that, that entrepreneur, in which you started, you’ve gotta take yourself back and you’ve gotta say, ‘Okay’ put your business hat on. Take your entrepreneur hat off, take your hat off of what you’ve built and what you’ve loved. And let’s think about this thing from a consumer standpoint and from a business operational standpoint. And I actually have a rule that if I find myself ever getting into that point, that I take a two hour time out.

If I think I’m gonna be too emotional about something or a review like that. I pump the brakes and say, gimme two hours, let me separate myself. I’ve gotta make sure I don’t use the emotions and the love and the care that I have for this place that I built and reply back negatively. Take it as a business learning opportunity and, and separate yourself.

Just take time out, take a few hours, give yourself some time, understand that it’s okay to feel those emotions and it’s okay to be upset. That somebody is calling your baby ugly, or somebody saying that, you know, you’ve done something wrong or that whatever you’ve built is not their expectations, but at the end of the day, you’re not gonna appease everybody.

That’s just the world we live in. You can’t make everybody happy. And you have to understand that too. And that if you try to appease everybody you’ll fail. Just be good at what you do. And some people are gonna be upset about it, put the way, but try to find common ground and try to remove your emotions from that and put on your hat as a business owner and try to remember that it’s okay to be upset and it’s okay to be emotional about a negative review, but you’ve gotta a business to run and you’ve gotta make sure you take that seriously and then reply back to it in the most business savvy customer service way.