cyanmonkey
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- Nov 9, 2014
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Former employee here.
Brewmasters Warehouse is effectively closed at this point.
There has been a serious attempt at an employee buyout for the last two months or so, but the negotiations have broken down to the point that it is nearly impossible to envision terms.
For several years, most of the employees have been very unhappy about certain aspects of the business. Several have left over these issues. The employee buyout was designed to bring some life and a bit more integrity back into management. In the last two weeks, three out of the four employees have either simply walked away or put in their two weeks notice. This leaves (in about a week) one part timer and an owner that is occasionally in on a Saturday.
The employee that was heading the proposed buy-out is now exploring options to open a shop in the Marietta/Smyrna area. He would be bringing at least one other long-term BMW staff with him, probably more. He is estimating 6-12 weeks before opening.
The employees do appreciate all of our customers. We have had our hands tied with all of the inventory issues, the shipping issues, and the incredible institutional inefficiency. The new store will take most of the good things that were in place in BMW, fix most of the more serious issues, and offer the services that BMW was known for 3 or 4 years ago. We know how much our service has slipped in the last 2 years or so, but there was not much that the employees could do while being out of 2-row, extract, and/or US-05 most of the time and being given information that was nowhere near reality. I still believe in the business, but it sometimes seems like the employees are the only ones who still do.
As of now, we are still open, but not operational. No employee has access to the code of the website, so we can't make a statement on there. I frankly expect us to be officially out of business on Monday.
When the new LHBS is nearly opened, the announcement will be made on HBT. If the thread still is up at that point, I will post here as well. In the meantime, I really have enjoyed helping you as much as I could, and I hope that some of the customers will at least give us the opportunity to let us serve them. Thank you all for being customers in the past, and I look forward to having some of you as customers again.
Sam
Brewmasters Warehouse
I've been wondering what the take is of the employees there. It sounds like you guys really do care and I'm sure they'll take that passion to the new store. Hopefully they'll put together something equivalent to the Brew Builder software because that was what set BMW apart from the rest of the competition.