Fall is one of our favorite times of year here at Voodoo Brewery, a time when we all come together, be it watching football, sitting around the table at Thanksgiving, or just having a beer with friends. Now obviously this year is a bit different than normal, but we still wanted to bring our community together, even if it was socially distanced with masks on. So, we decided to host a Harvest Market for our local community in Meadville, Pennsylvania, drawing crowds from all over the area and gaining exposure for local businesses and vendors. A recent article from the Meadville Tribune highlighted the action and what it represented for our craft beer franchise.

The market was aimed at representing everything that Voodoo is as a brand, on a bigger scale. While our breweries serve to promote our beer and food, our main goal is to bring people together for a good time, as we did at the Harvest Market. At the same time, the market was intended to give vendors who normally rely on several events and conventions during the year a chance to make up some of the profits lost due to COVID-19. The event did just that, and more!

Throughout the weekend there was a steady flow of customers, with many of the vendors sold out by Sunday evening. “Within the first 20 minutes, we were happy that we were here,” remarked vendor and artist “Eerie” Eric Fargiorgio. “Yesterday, we sold half of everything we brought down!” Eric, like many of his fellow vendors, usually relies on events and festivals throughout the year to promote his craft and make a living. Unfortunately, during 2020 he has only been able to attend two. We were happy to add one more to the list for him!

Aside from helping out the local community, the Harvest Market was a great promotional tool for our Craft Beer Franchise Owners. Through samples and beer and food sales, we were able to show customers just how bitchin’ our craft beer is and invite them to stop by one of our variety of locations, the newest of which just opened up in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. The venue for the market itself, our Compound in Meadville, was a testament to just how unique each one of our breweries is and truly showed everyone what we’re all about. Furthermore, the market emphasized that our Franchise Owners are more than just entrepreneurs. They’re leaders in the community and truly bring people together!

So you might be wondering, what’s it like as a Voodoo Craft Beer Franchise Owner? Well, we like to think that our Franchise Owners have one of the best jobs out there, and they get to enjoy a bunch of benefits that a boring corporate career just can’t offer. For starters, our Franchise Owners have the potential to realize tremendous growth and profitability. In 2019, our Franchise Owners saw average gross sales of $586,202*, with our top pub grossing $1,143,971.* With only $150,000 in liquid capital required, and investment starting at $358,500, you can see the potential for a quick return on investment.

It’s about more than just the profits though… as a Voodoo Craft Beer Franchise Owner you get to be your own boss and do things your way! In other words, you get to set your own schedule and work when you want to. This means spending more time with the fam and taking that trip you’ve always been wanting to take. Better yet, we do all the “heavy lifting” for you, meaning we do all the brewing, while you have the fun! If you hit any bumps in the road, our badass corporate support team has your back, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This includes training new employees, pushing marketing efforts, or just having someone to drink a beer with!

Best of all though, owning a Voodoo Brewery is freakin’ fun! There’s no corporate B.S. here at Voodoo. You do things your way, on your clock, and you get to sell kick-ass beer and dank food to some cool people in your local community! Furthermore, you’re surrounded by people that love beer as much as you and are genuinely fun to hang out with. We don’t live by lame corporate rules, but you get to enjoy the security that comes with being part of a larger organization.

So now that you can see that owning a Voodoo is pretty rad, what’re you waiting for? Check out our badass business model and become a badass entrepreneur today! Visit our franchising site to get started.

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*Numbers obtained from 2020 FDD Document

It’s hard not to think that maybe we’re on the right track with our beer franchise concept when legit franchise industry professionals want in! We’re absolutely stoked to announce that Voodoo Brewery has joined forces with two prominent heavy-hitters in the franchising world to help us bring our beer franchise to cities across the U.S. of A.!

Let’s start with the backstory. With our exceptional beer and unbelievable success at each of our Voodoo taprooms, we’ve known we had something special since Day One. In fact, we were confident that our model would be a huge success in any market we tried it in, and we made a decision to see what Voodoo could do as a beer franchise.

After an initial test period of opening franchise locations in Cleveland and New Kensington, we know we’ve got the magic formula- and we’re not just talking about our kickass beer!

In other words, Voodoo Brewery is now officially franchising on a national level and targeting new markets across the country where we think our beer franchise concept would really take off. (Since we’ve yet to find a city in America that doesn’t like beer, this should go really well.)

But, if you know us, you know this- we hate anything that’s got that “corporate machine” feel to it, and we weren’t about to hand over the Voodoo Brewery beer franchise concept to just any old rando. We knew we had to partner with the right people to bring our dream to life and allow us to keep everything that makes us special intact while we expand. Because believe us, there is no way in hell we’d be OK with turning a magical brewpub that has taken years of our blood, sweat, and tears into a boring, cookie-cutter beer franchise that you can find at the airport. So lame.

In order to see a future where Voodoo Brewery is one of the top taprooms in every major city, without losing the special sauce that makes us US, we wanted to partner with people who had successfully grown franchises across the country, not just quickly but with the RIGHT Franchise Owners at the helm of each location! And that’s where Brent Dowling and Mike Edwards come in. 

We first met Brent and Mike when we started making plans to take this crazy beer franchise dream and give it wings. As the respective CEO and President of Raintree, a highly-successful franchise development and marketing firm in Denver, Brent and Mike know a thing or two about how to grow a franchise on a national level, having helped over 30 franchise brands, including Jamba, Cheba Hut, and Famous Dave’s BBQ, achieve franchise development goals. Best of all, Raintree specializes in growing brands with unique, left-of-center identities operating within niche industries, helping them to achieve their full potential without sacrificing their individuality. In other words, we knew the Raintree peeps would hook us up with the right people to take this beer franchise thing national.  

From the first meeting, Brent and Mike were impressed with the Voodoo Brewery model and could see that our beer franchise concept had legs. In fact, they were SO impressed that they wanted to become part of the Voodoo Brewery family themselves! 

That last part is kind of a big deal- after developing 30 brands with Mike in their combined 30 years of experience, Brent had only invested in one other brand besides Voodoo, so it’s not like he goes around buying into every franchise brand he works with at Raintree. He says, “I’ve personally developed close to 30 brands now and have never seen something as unique, both from a cultural standpoint and a product standpoint. This franchise truly has all the traits of brands we’ve truly seen go galactic. We’re not only going to the moon, but we’re going across the universe with this thing!”

Mike felt similarly about Voodoo Brewery and the beer franchise opportunity we’re offering, and also wanted in on the action, not only because he feels confident in our success as a beer franchise, but also because he loves our company culture. “What a very cool brand!” he says. “I love the feeling and the vibe of their locations.  The name is cool, the look and the vibe are cool, and the beer is absolutely delicious!”

Mike also noted the value that the Voodoo Brewery corporate team brings to the table, both in terms of our product and the level of support our Franchise Owners can count on from Day One of partnering with our beer franchise. “Voodoo has an awesome team!” he says.  “Jake and Mateo have not only brewed some fantastic award-winning beers but once you see the team in action it is very clear why Voodoo keeps on putting out great products. When you see all the awards that Voodoo brewery has garnered for their products and you see how they are revered by other brewers, being able to join this team is a no-brainer!”

Brent, an Aussie who loves drinking beer and having fun when he isn’t helping franchise brands achieve monumental success, also dug the idea of investing in a company that brings him fulfillment on a personal level- especially after getting a firsthand look at how much our Franchise Owners love operating their Voodoo Brewery locations! He explains, “More than anything, I’m looking to work with folks and business models that I can truly enjoy at this stage in my career. After seeing what drove the Franchise Owners I’m currently working with, I realized I was basically the same person as them and saw the opportunity to get involved with something I could have fun with.”

Timing was also a factor for Brent, who was encouraged by our ability to navigate the COVID-19 juggernaut that we’ve all had to deal with this year, not to mention the sweet funding and real estate deals our future Franchise Owners can cash in on for the foreseeable future. “The timing on the partnership couldn’t be better from our perspective,” he notes. “I’ve never seen the real estate and lending environment be so favorable to franchising investments.”

Mike agrees, noting that Franchise Owners can invest in a Voodoo beer franchise for a mere fraction of the cost of other concepts that don’t even come close to what we offer in quality, passion, and individuality. “Voodoo Brewery is not only a unique offering, as there are not a lot of opportunities to own a beer franchise, but they also made it extremely affordable as the Franchise Owners does not have to become a brewer of beer and spend a small fortune on the equipment,” he says, adding, “Voodoo does all the brewing for the Owners.”

As both a franchise development expert and a Voodoo Brewery partner, Brent is anticipating some massive growth opportunity for our beer franchise for the rest of 2020 into 2021, as people return in droves to their favorite American pastime- drinking beer! “We’re already seeing a new level of demand for people to congregate as communities, have fun, and have some of the world’s best beers,” he says, adding, “We’ve never seen this kind of demand and see it continuing next year.”

So, what we guess we’re saying here is, we now have two legit franchising gurus on our corporate team, which is a win for all of us, especially our Franchise Owners! We couldn’t be happier to welcome Brent Dowling and Mike Edwards to the Voodoo tribe, and look forward to creating some serious franchise “magick” with them as we take this beer franchise to cities across the country!

Imagine bringing a beer franchise that doesn’t behave like a beer franchise to your neck of the woods- Voodoo Brewery offers Franchise Owners the unique opportunity to fulfill their lifelong dream of operating an award-winning craft brewery with an eclectic vibe and a legion of fans…all without ever brewing a single beer themselves! Are you in? Visit our beer franchise website to learn more./i>

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The 2020s may be off to an…interesting start, but the Voodoo Brewery franchise is channeling some old-school Roaring Twenties awesomeness with our all-new location in New Kensington, PA. Situated in a historic 1920s-era building on 5th Avenue in the heart of the bustling Pittsburgh suburb, our latest addition to the Voodoo Brewery franchise family is set to open its doors Friday, August 21!

The Voodoo Taproom at the Ritz, which was built nearly a century ago as the Ritz Theatre, is already proving to be the perfect venue for a brewery franchise that is all about embracing the unique and marching to the beat of our own drummer. New Kensington residents, along with longtime customers at other Voodoo Brewery franchise locations, were invited to help decorate the raw space that would become the Voodoo Taproom, along with its adjacent open-air beer garden, with materials ranging from stained glass to spray paint, for coupons good for a free beer upon opening.

The result is a delightfully quirky mishmash of styles and ideas that brewery franchise Chief Operating Officer Jake Voelker says is the whole idea behind Voodoo’s community-first philosophy. “I always say, craft beer without community is just beer,” remarked Voelker in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interview commemorating the grand opening of the New Kensington brewery franchise.

Voodoo Taproom’s Owners, Mike and Sue Malcanas, are embracing the eclectic charm of the brewery franchise location that they’ve had in the works since June 2019, getting creative with the use of space and repurposed materials to create a community meeting spot that is already influencing the look and feel of the rest of the neighborhood. “We’re basically Voodoo-izing the entire town,” Mr. Malcanas told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.” In addition to hiring Shane Pilster, the artist who created the giant mural on Voodoo Taproom’s outdoor space, to add original artwork on other buildings nearby, New Kensington is also slated to open a public pavilion for live music and other outdoor gatherings. Malcanas notes, “Ultimately, this is going to be Central Park, New Kensington.”

In fact, the Voodoo Taproom at the Ritz is slated to host its first free outdoor concert on Saturday, August 22, as acoustic cover band The Knockoffs take the stage as part of Pittsburgh’s ‘Seven Days of Music’ series. Customers can kick back with an ice-cold brew and chill out with some tunes just as they would any other summer- with the exception of the face masks that attendees will be required to wear.

In the span of time since the Malcanases signed the brewery franchise agreement, the world has changed. COVID-19 has certainly had an impact on the couple’s plans for the Voodoo Taproom, but along with Jake Voelker and the rest of the Voodoo Brewery franchise’s executive leadership team, they have been able to successfully augment their business model to keep customers safe and healthy while still being able to provide good times and great beer.

Jake Voelker explains how the Voodoo Brewery franchise, including the New Kensington location, has adapted its model in order to safely accommodate customers and keep the beer and good vibes flowing. “We focused, and transitioned quickly to be able to serve as much as possible outdoors,” he says, adding, “Two of our locations began serving beer out of retrofitted shipping containers in an outdoor area. Our Cleveland location built a new outdoor area. In addition, we have encouraged the use of food trucks as they limit staff and labor costs while providing less exposure, and we have limited our menus to highly cross-utilized ingredients that have a long shelf life; this is because with the constantly changing regulation we essentially have to watch our inventory very carefully.”

Voelker also offers high praise for the Franchise Owners of the New Kensington brewery franchise location and their ability to roll with the changes as they worked to open their new space, stating, “Our New Ken location team is very nimble, and has done a great job transitioning into outdoor space and holding socially distanced events, such as trivia.”

By keeping on top of the situation and remaining adaptable to circumstances that seem to change almost by the day, our executive team has been able to help all of our brewery Franchise Owners successfully pivot to a model that still allows for good times in the ‘new normal.’

Part of the New Kensington Downtown Historic District, the Ritz Theatre stopped showing movies in the late 1950s, transitioning to a bingo parlor and then a recreation hall for another couple of decades before finally shuttering its doors in 1971. In short, it’s exactly the kind of property we love! Repurposing second- or even third-generation buildings in need of a little TLC is our jam- not only because it helps us preserve historic sites and fit in with the natural vibe and architecture of each community we open a Voodoo Brewery franchise in, but also because it can save our Franchise Owners BIG time! Especially now, amid COVID-19, when interest rates are at historic lows and commercial real estate is abundant, we’re able to help our Franchise Owners uncover these hidden gems right in their community, shine them up, and make them their own by rubbing a little Voodoo Brewery funk on them. It’s just one more thing that makes us kind of the “anti-franchise” brewery franchise.

Feeling a little jealous of Mike and Sue Malcanas, their awesome new taproom, and all the new friends they’ll inevitably make in New Kensington now that they’re purveyors of our legendary craft beer? No need for that- by this time next year, you could be chilling out in the beer garden of a Voodoo Brewery franchise location of your own! We’ve got all the details on our Voodoo Brewery franchise website– take a look and score some free info on how to make your secret (or not so secret) dream of owning a kickass craft brewery franchise come true.

If there’s one thing you probably know about Voodoo Brewery, it’s that we’re not the type of craft beer franchise that is afraid to stand up for what’s right. We’re all about justice in all its beautiful forms, and we do what we can to spread good vibes in our brewery franchise locations, as well as throughout the community of craft beer drinkers, with our mind-blowingly delicious brews and a laid-back vibe that welcomes people from all walks of life with open arms. In fact, if there’s one thing we love more than beer, it’s the amazing people who come into our brewpubs from far and wide to share it with us! 

So when we heard about the Black Is Beautiful initiative to help end racial injustice once and for all through a shared love of people and great beer, you’d better believe we wanted in. Our craft beer franchise is but one component of an entire network of beer retailers raising awareness about the injustices people of color face every day through the shared love language of beer. 

The Black is Beautiful initiative is a collaborative effort amongst the brewing community and its customers, with a mission to bridge the gap that’s been around for ages and provide a platform to show that the brewing community is an inclusive place for everyone of any color. We’re proud to be part of this initiative and are committed to doing our part to end systemic racism once and for all by participating in this collaboration.

Brewed by Weathered Souls Brewing Company, an independent San Antonio, Texas-based craft brewery, Black Is Beautiful is a stout recipe created by African-American head brewer and brewery co-owner Marcus Baskerville. Brewers who participated in the initiative, including Voodoo Brewery’s Master Brewer Curt Rachocki, were invited to place their own spin on the Black Is Beautiful stout base, creating a unique product that featured each brewery’s personal flair. 

“With the current tensions that are rising, we thought that it was of grave importance to start the Black Is Beautiful initiative,” states Baskerville in an open letter to craft beer enthusiasts on the Black Is Beautiful website. “We took a stout recipe and decided to call on our peers in the brewing industry to collaborate in unison for equality and inclusion amongst people of color.” 

Our craft beer franchise, along with other participating brewers across America, donated 100 percent of the proceeds from the sale of Black Is Beautiful beer to local foundations of their choice that support police brutality reform and legal defenses for those who have been wronged by the system. Voodoo Brewery donated the proceeds from our sales of Black Is Beautiful to ACLU Pennsylvania and the Black Business Relief Fund of Pittsburgh, which was started by Cocoapreneur to alleviate the financial burden for Black-owned Pittsburgh businesses that sustained damage in the wake of the George Floyd protests. 

“America unfortunately has a history of marginalizing people who aren’t white and so obviously there’s a great awakening going on right now,” stated Andy Hoover, ACLU Pennsylvania’s Director of Communications, adding, “People are challenging systemic racism and so the fact that brewery recognized that we are doing that work and that we’re doing it effectively, we really appreciate that,” 

Apart from wanting to help the brewing community take a stand for social justice, our craft beer franchise wanted to collaborate with Black Is Beautiful as a way to help educate fellow brewery fans and beer enthusiasts about systemic racism and learn more about what they can do to show their support. 

“Right now I know in the brewing industry in particular, it’s not particularly a diverse group, and I think it’s a great starting point to educate and increase awareness,” Voodoo Brewery CEO Matteo Rachocki told reporter Brianna Andrews in a TV interview with Erie News Now. “It’s super important to us to be involved in things like this- it’s part of what giving back as a business owner is.”

Voodoo Brewery was one of 1,037 breweries across all 50 U.S. states and in 20 countries that participated in the Black Is Beautiful initiative. We’re happy to say that Black Is Beautiful beer was a huge hit and is now completely sold out. We’re proud to have participated in this amazing project and hope that the contributions we were able to make thanks to our kickass fans can help make a difference in the fight against racial injustice and police brutality.

We always say that one of the best things about our craft beer franchise is having the chance to give back to the community, and we’re stoked that we were able to do it through our first love- BEER. With the support of our Franchise Owners, our fans, and the communities we’re lucky enough to be part of, Voodoo Brewery will always be on the lookout for fun new ways to make a difference in our corner of the world. 

Interested in becoming One Of Us? Let’s talk. Visit our franchise website to learn more.

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OK, we’re just going to come right out and say what we’re all thinking- is now REALLY a good time to open a brewery franchise? After all, Voodoo Brewery’s business model is centered around an eclectic, quirky brewpub filled with local craft beer enthusiasts and casual beer drinkers gathering together to tip a few and have some laughs…you know, basically everything we have not been able to do since COVID-19 first started wreaking havoc back in March. 

If you’ve been feeling cooped up lately and are suffering from serious cabin fever during these past few months, you are definitely not alone. People like you who crave a fun experience that doesn’t involve your living room or a Zoom call will be clamoring to get out of their houses and hit their favorite bar as soon as the virus is behind us. Not only that but second-generation real estate, which we prefer to source for our new locations, is getting easier and cheaper to lease than it’s been in years!

 These new developments, along with a few very promising statistics about the future of franchising in general that we’re going to share with you, give us reason to believe that when it comes to investing in a Voodoo Brewery franchise now, it’s all upside. Better put on those shades, future Voodoo Brewery Franchise Owners, because your future is looking BRIGHT!

The Franchise Industry Is Blowing Up!

Believe it or not, you’re not the only person considering investing in a brewery franchise right now. Pretty far from it, in fact- according to FranchiseInsights.com, investment inquiries to franchisors in all industries are up 16.2% in the first half of June from where they were in May.  Additionally, the number of investor inquiries into food and restaurant franchise concepts increased by 9.4% from April to May. 

Why? Here’s the thing- whether it feels like it or not, our entire situation right now is temporary. In a survey of aspiring Franchise Owners across multiple industries way back at the beginning of this whole mess, over 55% of them agreed or strongly agreed that “now is a good time” to start a business. 48% of the survey respondents expected to start a business within the next three months, with another 16% looking to open a franchise location within four to six months.

In other words, the amount of time it takes to get a franchise location off the ground made future Franchise Owners optimistic that COVID-19 wouldn’t thwart their goals of entrepreneurship. 

Given the fact that an average ramp-up time for a new Voodoo Brewery franchise hovers around 9 months, give or take, that means that a Franchise Owner who signed an agreement with Voodoo Brewery today wouldn’t be seeing their Grand Opening take place until, say, March 2021. Seeing as how the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, testified in a June 23 hearing that he feels “cautiously optimistic” that a vaccine will be available by as soon as the end of this year, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to believe that by next March, this nasty pandemic may very well be behind us all, and the only thing fans of our brewery franchise will be in danger of spreading to one another is good vibes!

The second half of 2020 doesn’t have to suck- invest in a Voodoo Brewery franchise!

We’re going to address the giant, coronavirus-shaped elephant in the room here and acknowledge that numerous local businesses, especially retail stores and restaurants, have been forced to shut their doors, in some cases permanently, since the COVID-19 crisis began in March. As local business owners ourselves, this breaks our hearts. However, there is a serious silver lining here for would-be Voodoo Brewery Franchise Owners- this means a sudden surge in the amount of prime real estate available to new, up-and-coming businesses. In other words, a new Franchise Owner could make some tasty lemonade out of this big-ass bag of lemons we call 2020!

In other “pandemic upside” news, the U.S. Treasury has slashed interest rates, meaning that it’s also a lot more affordable to lease or purchase commercial real estate than it’s been in an entire decade. That means that an amazing potential location in a highly sought-after market may be going for a lot less than it was at the beginning of this year. Along those same lines, qualifying for small business funding just got easier thanks to special SBA loan programs and small business-owner protections under the CARES Act. All in all, if you have long considered investing in a brewery franchise (or you just got unceremoniously dumped by their long-term corporate gig and are looking to change up your future with a fun new career), you could look back on 2020 as the year you finally took control of your financial destiny by taking the steps to open a Voodoo Brewery franchise, rather than seriously just the worst year in recent human history.

Additionally, owning a Voodoo Brewery franchise means that you are backed by a level of corporate support that most independent brewpub owners couldn’t even dream of- instead of having to take on the considerable risk that comes with opening a bar or restaurant, having to deal with the day-to-day hassles of coming up with exciting menu items, communicating with your distributors, planning promotions, coming up with effective advertising and marketing strategies, and- oh yeah!- brewing your own beer to serve on tap, you’ve got the entire Voodoo Brewery tribe to handle the heavy lifting. All of our Franchise Owners are backed by our proven business model that is carried out by an experienced team of experts, leaving them not much more to do than be the guy or gal behind the bar, chatting with customers and pouring some of the best damn beer the world’s ever tasted. 

It’s gonna take more than a global pandemic to stop the Voodoo Brewery franchise!

Sooner or later, we’ll be welcoming droves of fans back into all of our existing Voodoo Brewery locations, not to mention opening the doors to a few shiny new locations of our craft brewery franchise in cities nationwide. We’ve already gotten our groove back over at the Compound, our 30,000- square foot taproom in Meadville, PA where all the brewing magic happens. We recently re-opened our outdoor space to safely welcome our fans back with enough widely-spaced seating areas to accommodate 35 socially-distanced dining parties in a laid-back beer garden-type setting, and even welcomed a live band, Sunday at the Station, to play for us last Saturday night!

Our flagship Voodoo Brewery location on Arch Street in Meadville was approved to use a portion of the Mill Run parking lot space for safe outdoor dining, so we’ll be reopening there very soon. In the meantime, PA and D.C. residents can now enjoy Voodoo Brewery beer delivered directly to their homes– it just doesn’t get much better than that!

And- we don’t know, seems like something we should mention- our newest Voodoo Brewery franchise location in Cleveland Heights, OH reopened June 25 for dine-in and carryout, after months of being open for to-go beer and merch purchases only!

 We may have had to cancel our Good Vibes Beer Fest, but on the upside, we’re seeing awesome results from our Beer It Forward campaign and are psyched to treat our essential healthcare workers on the frontline to a few rounds when they can make it in. 

We look forward to the day we can put COVID-19 behind us and get back to sharing good times, good vibes, and, in our humble opinion, the world’s best beer, with fans who come from far and wide just to enjoy their favorite Voodoo brew on tap. And we want YOU in that picture! We’re building up steam and getting set to take this concept to cities all across the country, and we’re on the lookout for awesome individuals who have what it takes to become a member of the Voodoo tribe. 

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you were able to turn this absolute dumpster fire of a year into your year of entrepreneurial triumph? We want to help make that happen. Fill out the form below to receive more information about the Voodoo Brewery franchise opportunity, or visit our franchise website here.