How Beneficial is Obtaining an Alcohol License for Restaurants in Georgia and What Are The Risks?
It’s no secret that Athens is a great town for food and drinks. Boasting 80 bars in a single square mile, there is a plethora of options for any visitor looking to enjoy the classic city’s downtown experience. But what does the risk/reward look like for a local restaurant owner debating whether an alcohol license is worth it?
Cheba Hut is a toasted sub spot located off of Washington St. downtown. Founded in 1988, the chain has expanded across the United States and now has over 50 locations nationwide and opened up their Athens location in Oct, 2023. Other than the stoner theme, what sets it apart from similar restaurants around Athens is a full bar setup.
James Achellam, the store’s assistant General Manager who is soon transitioning to General Manager, started last April and now handles most human resource matters for the sub shop. He believes that having a bar in the shop has been largely beneficial saying,
“Our business is kind of split into halves. Essentially anything before eight o’ clock, it’s all subs, then right after eight pushing into nine or ten, our bar starts filling up. And it honestly becomes a really nice spot to hang out at, especially gamedays.”
In Georgia there are legal processes that can make it difficult for restaurants to obtain an alcohol license but according to Parks Huff, an Atlanta based attourney who commonly deals with Georgia State alcohol license rules and regulations, it’s actually easier for most restaurants than bars to obtain licensing to serve alcohol.
This is due to a number of factors, including “blue laws” which restrict alcohol sales on Sunday. Dating back to post-prohibition times, these laws now allow restaurants to sell alcohol on Sunday, but require 50 percent of overall sales to come from food. Huff went into further detail on these regulations saying,
“If you’ve got a restaurant that happens to be close to a church or a school then that is often not allowed. One of the most angry alcohol license cases I had was for a pizza restaurant that was close to two churches and a school, and the community was kind of divided as to whether they wanted a pizza restaurant that could serve beer in their neighborhood.”
Cheba Hut dealt with a similar issue during its 2023 Athens introduction. According to Achellam, being located directly across the street from Athens First United Methodist Church impacted the timetable for the restaurant’s construction.
“The construction was only gonna take about four weeks, but it definitely got pushed into like three or four months with zoning rights, communicating with the board. I’m not entirely sure about our communication with the church itself. I think they actually had to give us our permission but that’s speculation.”
Another common issue with alcohol licensing is passing inspections. Huff says that both state and local jurisdictions can be sneaky with their compliance check efforts and often urges his clients to train their employees appropriately.
“So in Athens you’ll have Athens-Clarke County issuing a license, but you also have a state license, and both jurisdictions can at times send underage folks to do a compliance check. And if your employee fails that compliance check, it can be very damaging for your business, because the employee will get a citation where they have to go to court, subject to a fine, and it can hurt their ability to get an alcohol license elsewhere.”
This raises another expense of running a restaurant with an alcohol license as insurance becomes crucial. Insurance is an extra cost for restaurant owners, but serves to protect the owner if a person in their establishment were to be over-served and involved in a wreck, covering liability.
Despite these risks, Achellam has helped Cheba Hut to avoid any pitfalls and believes that their alcohol license is largely responsible for their success over the last two years.
“Especially for game days we’ll plan six or seven weeks out, especially around when the football season starts our business shoots up at least, I mean a couple thousand dollars an hour. It goes from 800 to 1200 like that and immediately doubles our prices. So we have to completely overhaul how many people are gonna be working. It’s incredible.”