Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ben Reitz. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ben, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

It was really a matter of timing and business necessity; My fiancée, Randi, owns & operates Kay & Co — a travel planning & decor agency that services the burgeoning bachelorette markets of Charleston, Savannah, Charlotte, and Austin. When Covid-19 arose, the newly imposed restrictions upon travel, dining, and entertainment left Kay & Co’s clientele yearning for activities more suited to the privacy of their Airbnb. One idea in particular continued to surface in client requests: an on-site cocktail mixing class. Business was much slower than usual at the time, and we knew pivoting to meet this new demand was crucial to keeping the business afloat.

Initially, we looked into simply outsourcing the service, but quickly discovered that nothing of the sort exists locally, with the exception of a few local bartenders touting private party services on their social media accounts. We worked with a few of them before realizing that bartenders were showing-up and improvising without any real plan, leaving the burden of planning, setup, and cleanup with us. We quickly resolved that the classes need be booked via a legitimate business, not an under-the-table side hustle endeavor whose availability is hit-or-miss.

After trying (to no avail) to convince a friend & owner of a local bar supply business to take it on, we decided to start the business ourselves — creating an LLC, applying for the appropriate business licenses, developing a website, and establishing a social media presence from home that same evening. Having worked in marketing, bar goods manufacturing, and various service industry roles, we tapped into my knowledge of bartending & cocktails to develop the initial class model, cocktail offerings, and pricing packages. It was strictly Kay & Co clientele booking the service at first, with the two of us teaching the classes together, but within a month, we had begun receiving outside organic inquiries every day, and we had to begin enlisting local bartenders to meet the demand. Now we boast a staff of six part-time bartenders and one class coordinator in Charleston, and are in the process of expanding to Austin in Spring 2023.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a web-developer & photographer by trade, but Randi & I have worked in-and-out of the restaurant industry in one capacity or another since high school. I started my career in programming and somehow found my way into Marketing over the years. After seeing a local tech firm through an acquisition as Demand Gen Director, I decided to leave and start YAP (Your Attention, Please), now consulting privately for restaurants and food & beverage brands.

Growing-up with a father & grandfather who’d been restauranteurs in the 70’s & 80’s, our house was abound with relics from past restaurant ventures: wooden-handled steak knives and wooden salt & pepper grinders reminiscent of a dark & moody steakhouse, architectural renderings of restaurant concepts like “Doc Mulvaney’s Territorial Saloon”, and elaborate floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows commissioned for a concept that never came to fruition. Needless to say, cooking, bartending, serving, managing, and the likes were a regular topic in our house, and it translated into a healthy appreciation & love for food & bev that has carried on into adulthood.

When we started Charleston Cocktail Co, it only took a few classes before we realized that we’d naively assumed many of the seemingly simple idiosyncrasies of bartending & cocktail mixing were common knowledge. The truth is, most everyone can appreciate a great, well-balanced cocktail, but they don’t typically have the tools or knowledge to construct one themselves. Our hope is to show clients a good time, but also send them home with a few essential bartending tricks they can apply at home to create well-balanced, consistent cocktails for friends & family — lessons I’m obliged to share with my fellow cocktail enthusiasts.

We want clients to leave knowing they can make cocktails at home without having to spend a fortune. That said, while they’re with us, we pull out a lot of stops to ensure a restaurant-quality experience, from providing each participant with their own station, tools, and set of ingredients to using crystal clear 2″ cocktail ice (reverse-osmosis filtered & hand cut by a local ice sculptor), kicking off each class with personal 187ml bottles of champagne, prosecco, sparkling rose, or lambrusco (a sparkling red wine that is delightful), offering mocktail & non-alcoholic options, and providing individualized menus with the recipes to take with them.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Compensate your team fairly, treat them as your peers, genuinely listen to their feedback, and make sure to give credit when & where credit is due. Charles Schwab once said “There is nothing that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I have yet to find a person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.” Remember that it’s easy to criticize, but takes character to offer unsolicited praise.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Attention to detail and customer service are our product differentiators, without a doubt. We work hard to ensure clients feel they are getting a restaurant quality experience, not something they could throw together themselves at home with some liquor bottles and their dive-bartender bestie. It’s the little details — like using the correct glassware for a given drink (coupes, flutes, collins glasses, stemless wine glasses, rocks glasses, martini glasses, and the likes), having branded yeti coolers & supply crates, using hand-cut 2″ crystal clear cocktail ice, including personal 187ml prosecco bottles, and offering mocktail options and a personalized take home menu — that has helped us build a reputation for quality and set ourselves apart from competitors.

To my knowledge, there’s also no other local businesses whose sole focus is intimate, on-site cocktail class experiences. There are likely some talented bartenders & mixologists that offer private classes, but none boasting the same level of quality or ease of booking, with a website, automated scheduling, and online payment processing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.charlestoncocktail.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charlestoncocktailco/

Image Credits
Ruta Smith (image of owners) Ben Reitz (images of cocktails & classes)