Visit Date & Time: 10/12/2024 8:03PM
One of the most important factors to expanding a brand involves leveraging the existing brand's equity and reputation to reach new customer segments or geographical areas. Brand expansion allows a company to build on its established identity and customer loyalty to drive growth and increase market exposure. Unfortunately, The Craft Bar PCB fails to capitalize on this concept.
We make it a point to visit The Craft Bar Destin when in town and, now that my parents moved to PCB, we were looking forward to visiting this location. The interior was clean yet poorly-lit, giving the space a gloomy look and feel. Artwork and wall fixtures were sparse in a comically amateurish design with a chalkboard directing us to seat ourselves. The ambiance was an obvious departure and lacks the charm of the Destin location. The space is about occupied at 15% capacity at most.
We made our way to the bar and we're greeted by a friendly bartender. My wife ordered her favorite cocktail, the Scorched Earth as I perused the beer menu. Immediately, I noticed that the menu lacked the usual depth and breadth that originally attracted me to The Craft Bar. The extensive variety of local Florida craft beers was gone, replaced by macro/mass-produced large scale brewery offerings.
As I'm looking over the, my wife and I are watching the bartender "craft" her cocktail. The Scorched Earth is supposed to be Gin, muddled cucumbers, fresh citrus, sugar, and rosemary, served in a smoke-infused glass with burning herbs on top. Typically, the drink is garnished with a fresh sprig of rosemary that's been charred just before serving. What we got was a few rosemary leaves from leftover burnt rosemary that was already on the bar. The flecks of broken rosemary leaves made the drinking experience unenjoyable. My wife was picking rosemary shards out of her teeth and off her lips after every sip. The poor execution of her drink set the tone for the evening. I ordered a beer and it was served in a clean glass.
Using Destin as my benchmark, food at the PCB location was consistently good. Fried Chicken, Mac & Cheese, & Craft Burger were all as expected. Not completely sure why, but they tried to give us collard greens instead of the Brussels Sprouts we ordered, but this oversight caused us to question the integrity of the kitchen. We're they trying to avoid preparing the side because it was more laborious. We also noticed that some of the fries on the burger tasted fresh while others were cold. Reflecting on the Scorched Earth from earlier, it seemed the staff were sacrificing integrity for efficiency. The haphazard rosemary garnish, serving us a side we didn't order and then taking a good bit of time to get it right, and finally the two-temperature fries really made us question why we chose The Craft Bar in the first place.
To make matters worse, we asked the bartender to change one of the T.V.s and he gave some illogical excuse that made me think they were bootlegging whatever streaming service or cable service provider they had. The restaurant was at about 10% by this time he said he couldn't change the channel because it would mess up the whole system.
I ordered another beer which was supposed to be a Pale Ale but it had a very strong yeast flavor indicative of a Belgian wheat ale. He offered to replace it or remove it from the bill but I refused and drank it anyway. We had a brief conversation about it and he even poured a glass and aagreed with me that it was yeasty. I said "maybe the kegs were hooked up wrong " and he told me the beer had been on tap for 3 days. I asked him to check and see if the wrong beer was hooked up but he went to act busy like he couldn't be bothered with it.
I included a pipicture of the chicken thigh I ate. You can see slightly pink/red juice on the plate. The chicken is brined and was cooked through but some people may be put off by this sight. It didn't bother me and I ate it all. Just another example of the poor execution by the PCB staff.
Overall, the food and drinks were good, the place where The Craft Bar PCB looses points is in expectation and execution. If you're going to expanding your brand, you need people who can execute your vision. This experience was like the blind leading the blind. read more