Other negative reviews are spot on. Worst decision and years of our lives. - Anonymous employee Craft Beer Cellar Employee Review

So my review would be of the Franchise side of the business and echoing everything the others have said. I’ll add some copy paste from the others to highlight the main points then add a few of my own. “Where to start? No matter how much I write here, it won't ever be complete. All problems stem from Suzanne Schalow and how she runs Craft Beer Stellar. Stellar is the company that runs the Craft Beer Cellar franchise.” “The franchise program is an utter mess. The sales projections are off by 50% or more, and the costs are off by that much too. There is little to no support from "the brand", and with such a high turnover rate at the brand level there's no continuity of opinions or long term ideas other than "sell more beer, strictly adhere to anything we say." Have an idea? Suzanne will belittle you and call you names.” “The brand management is a mess, mostly at the hands of Suzanne Schalow. The Mismanagement by brand has led to a revolving door of brand staff leaving. Demanding people sign non competes is asinine. The support for franchises is poor with Suzanne constantly threatening to take over franchises and put stores in default. If you are interested in owning a franchise, the low margins and long hours and temperamental headquarters make this one to stay away from.” “I have to sadly agree with the other cons. Besides the economics of the franchisee business which is terrible, having to deal with Suzanne and her massive ego along with her passive aggressive remarks is enough reason to run away. Once she has your money, you are nothing to her. Its on to the next one. Do yourself a favor and run away she is not a nice person. Which is very surprising sine all she preaches is having #madluv.” “Another thing that we were told was that we would have the help of a real estate agent to aid us and help out in our search for a building. Also, we were led to believe that since we signed on to a "nationally known" beer store chain, we would be able to reap the rewards in the form of increased leverage with the distributors, which means easier access to the more hard to get beers. None of that even came close to happening, and we had to do all the work ourselves, which was fine, but don't sell us or others on what amounted to empty promises.” Me: So seeing all the above comments and many others from previous reviews solidifies and justifies my feelings all along. I’ll add that they (The Brand) have, or at least at the time, had no idea of other markets outside of Mass. What works in Mass. doesn’t necessarily work in other states with different laws. The initial order of stock was a haphazard effort by Kate just going down the list and checking off what she knew sells at their store with zero regard to what sells in any other state/area. We had beer that sat for months on the shelf after opening and had to discard finally. Guess what people don’t buy Sam Adams from a craft beer store when they can get it from Sam’s Club for less than what we pay for it as a retailer. In Mass. they have/had favorable laws that don’t exist elsewhere e.g., only 3 branches/locations of a grocery store can sell beer (or something pretty close to this). Guess what? Every store sells beer here and they all get access to the same beer we can with very few exceptions. So not only are you competing with BevMo, ABC, XYZ and Total Wine, you are also competing with Walmart, Safeway, Krogers, Winn Dixie, Sam’s Club, Costco, Publix etc etc. Do your due diligence and look into this before opening a beer store at all let alone giving these guys $25k for a pdf of a logo and regulations that are counterproductive to making money. For instance we couldn’t sell Pumpkin or “Fall” beer until a certain date (1 Sept. If I remember correctly). In the mean time every store in the area is selling it by August 1st the latest. So we miss out on 30 days of sales during one of the most beer crazed seasons. They’ll also watch your social media posts and inspect the pictures to see if they can spot a foul in the background and let you know about it. Speaking of social media they claim to be such experts and will criticize your posts yet you know the local market and the behaviors of your clientele. Yet one of our original posts would get say 100 interactions and one of their “expert” posts might get 5. The POS is just that a POS. It has it’s place and is fairly robust but archaic, cumbersome and not easily learned. Their are so many better and easier solutions out there for the simple operation of a beer store, but you are bound to their system. Also the credit card processor, World Pay, is another bone of contention. Several stores had local processors show then how they could save money in processing fees, in some cases a considerable amount. They won’t hear of it at all as I’m sure they get special rates for the millions of dollars of Franchisee’s business that is processed, and possibly some kickbacks. As far as support if you are local within a couple hours drive you will get some “support” and visits from the team. Out of state, forget it, zero visits in 4 years. Although we and most others probably prefer it that way. I could go on but it only brings up bad memories of the money and years wasted, having to deal with them and how horrible of a person Suzanne is.