‘Mom & Pop’ Liquor Stores Slowly a Dying Breed?
As with so many other types of smaller stores, the big corporate franchises are causing small store owners to shut down after many years in business. Liquor stores are next.
The final blow may be the Sunday liquor sales that starts this weekend. You'd think adding another day to the week of liquor sales would help smaller stores, but it's making things much harder. Many owners consider Sunday their 1 day off in their long 6-day work week. It's not easy to try to staff another day when you have just a couple employees.
The larger franchise stores are another issue, as they can charge as much as 20% less for the same product the small stores have to. It's nearly impossible to make ends meet when you can't drop your product price enough to be competitive with larger stores that buy much larger bulk for a steep discount.
Target is the newest 'big box' store to join the liquor sales trend. They've had a liquor store in Otsego for the last 3-years, and are now planning to open another one in downtown Minneapolis this weekend. If most of the Super Targets start adding wine & spirits across the country, it could be devastating to the smaller mom & pop liquor stores as the final straw.
Thankfully there are a fair amount of small town liquor stores all around Minnesota that do well because there aren't any other stores nearby. It's those around the St. Cloud area that are feeling it the worst.