CHRIS LIEB

Partner, BUTCHER & THE BREWER/TREMONT TAPHOUSE

CLEVELAND, OH

I am a partner at Butcher and the Brewer and the Tremont Taphouse. Born and raised in Cleveland proper, I'm still here. Growing up, my partner Jason and I both had grandparents that would take us to the butcher shops. It was a ritual. So that's our butcher aspect, and then with Tremont Taphouse, we thought, heck, we serve everybody else's beer, why don't we open our own brewery? Then we fell into this nice space, big enough for a brewery, butcher shop, and restaurant, so that's how it all came about. 

I'd been building and managing other people’s restaurants since I was 18. One day I said, ‘hey, maybe it's time to stop doing this for everybody else.’ The best part of what I do is just getting to see people have a good time. It's not an easy business, but I like people, I love to eat food, I love to drink beer. I get to do what I love. You know, I'm not sitting at a desk in a cubicle. It's a wonderful life. 

The pandemic affected everybody's business differently but in a lot of ways the same. The shutdown, being out of business for a long time and then having to restart. Now, it seems since the first part of the pandemic, things are a little bit more difficult in that we're having a hard time with staffing. We're doing a pretty good job. Reviews online are 98% Good. And we're doing it with a lot less staff than we ever have. So yeah, it's been difficult. It's been interesting. And it's evolved. We are always thinking about what's changing and how we have to change in order to keep up and be ahead of it. 

Words of encouragement to other people in the industry and business in general? Even if you believe in the old saying ‘work on your business, not in your business, right now, a lot of us have to work in our business and on our business. It's really difficult and it's stressful but tough it out, I think we're going to get there. It just comes down to the old adage, you have to work hard, period.

“Some people don't want to order their food on an app. I get it.  But what’s BS to me, is the comment: This app sucks. Hire more people. Pay a fair living wage. Fair enough. Those are all good points. Guess what? We have the app because we can't hire more people. And guess what? We are paying a fair living wage now. It's there. It's not going back.”