Kevin Vizcarrondo, bar manager at Zaco’s Tacos in Culebro, Puerto Rico
By Ed Avis
When COVID shut down restaurants across the country in 2020, most states responded with an important rules change: They allowed restaurants to sell liquor with take-out orders. The ability to sell liquor that way helped a lot of restaurants survive, and today it’s still spiking profits at many restaurants.
According to an el Restaurante reader survey conducted in early June, Mexican/Latin restaurants that sell liquor to-go sell about 13 percent of their liquor that way, on average. There was a wide range of response to that question – some restaurants in the group sell only about 1 percent of their liquor to-go, while some sell as much as 45 percent.
At Zaco’s Tacos in Culebro, Puerto Rico, take-out alcohol comprises about 10 percent of total alcohol sales.
“When COVID started and everything had to be to-go, we started serving drinks, too, and it worked out great,” says Kevin Vizcarrondo, the bar manager at Zaco’s Tacos. “Even now, sometimes people order a margarita while they’re waiting for their take-out food, and when it’s ready they say, ‘That was super nice, can I get another one to go?’”
But even restaurants that don’t sell much alcohol to-go appreciate the option. For example, Lorraine Salazar, co-owner of Sal’s Mexican Restaurant in Fresno, California, says her to-go liquor sales make up less than one percent of her total liquor sales, but she continues to offer it.
“It’s another offering, another opportunity for a sale and another convenience for our guests, and that’s important,” Salazar says.
California is one of several states that have made their alcohol-to-go policies permanent. Others include Texas and Florida. Many states, including Illinois and Washington, still allow these sales for the time being, but have not permanently changed the rules. Some states, such as Utah, never allowed it. And in many cases, local jurisdictions have stricter rules than the state.
The specifics of the rules vary. Some states allow delivery of alcohol while others limit it to take-out orders, for example, and some states allow already-mixed cocktails while others limit alcohol sales to sealed, original containers.
According to the survey, the most popular alcoholic beverage sold via take-out is the margarita – 70 percent of respondents ranked that classic cocktail number one. Beer if the next best seller via take-out, followed by mojitos.
Margaritas are top sellers at Sal’s Mexican Restaurant, Salazar reports. They sell the cocktail pre-mixed in a plastic half-pint or full-pint container, and they provide the rimmer – a salt and Tajin mix – in a separate small plastic container. The container with the margarita must be sealed with a strip that, presumably, would make it harder for the customer to open the container and drink it while driving home.
“It does cost us more to make a to-go margarita because of the containers, but there’s room in the margin for those costs,” Salazar says.
Vizcarrondo says he’s happy to serve any alcoholic drink to-go, including tap beer and shots.
“I like to make life easier for everybody,” he says. “When you come to place like Culebro, every day is like Friday, we have the best beaches in the world, and we help each other here.”