Best bottle shop

BY JOHN H. WALKER

tarting a new business is tough enough, but two months after opening the doors of the Crooked Lotus Craft Beer & Wine in Snead’s Ferry, Nicole Schmidt had to deal with the arrival of Hurricane Florence and the damage the storm left behind. Nicole and her husband, U.S. Marine Brandon Schmidt, had done their homework. They knew what they wanted to do and what they wanted to create when they finally opened their bar. But Nicole said the actual manner in which The Crooked Lotus came into being wasn’t quite as direct. “I had played roller derby and broke my ankle and lost my job,” she said. “I went on interview after interview and no one wanted to hire someone in a walking boot. Finally, I interviewed at a mortgage company and he asked, ‘What are your goals?’ “I told him my husband and I wanted to open a bar and shared my vision. He told me he wasn’t going to hire me, but that I should just jump off the mountain and do it,” she said. Fast forward a week to the time when Brandon was deploying. “He got in-country and called and asked me what was going on,” she said. “I told him I was going to open the bar we had talked about. He said, ‘Why don’t you wait until January, when I’m back’ and I told him I couldn’t, He wanted to know why and I said because I just signed the lease papers.” Brandon was still deployed when the doors opened … when Florence hit and when the doors reopened post-Florence … and Nicole never missed a beat. The end result? The Crooked Lotus is the winner of the Best Bottle Shop category in the 2019 Carolina BrewScene competition. “It’s surreal,” Nicole said of the award. “I didn’t think that many people loved us like that … I mean, the magazine goes all over.” Nicole, who has a background in interior design, said, “I didn’t want it to look like any of the other bottle shops.” It doesn’t. “I wanted it to have a wow factor,” Nicole said. It does. A floor of polished concrete and subdued lighting set the stage for a bar that stretches along the left side of the room. Elevated on the wall behind the bar are three screens, with a pair of digital menu boards flanking an HD television. As in other bars, the menu board lists the beer by name with its ABV and IBU. It also includes name and location of the brewery and, of course, the price. In the middle of the bar, and on the wall at the end of the bar, one spots the business end of the house — the beer taps. At Crooked Lotus, there are 18 and Nicole says the mechanics of rotating brews is “a really good system.” She said the kegs are numbered, as are each of the taps. On the tap, the little piece of paper with the number also carries the date. “It makes it easier on my girls,” she said. Like cookies on a website, Nicole says she makes buying and inventory decisions based on customer feedback. Like cookies track your keystrokes, Nicole tracks her customer feedback. “The customer is the most

Simportant part of this business,” she acknowledged. “When we started, I told them (customers) that this wasn’t my place … but that it was their place. We wanted them to be comfortable and we wanted them to tell us what they liked and didn’t like.” Apparently, it is working. The Crooked Lotus is located at 1283 NC-210, Unit G in Sneads Ferry, just down the strip center from the huge shark in front of Shark Attack, a local tourist shop. It is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and from noon to 9 p.m. on Sunday. For more information, call 910-741-0692.

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Crooked Lotus

2nd - BrÜtopia (New Bern, NC) 3rd - Bruin Craft Beer & Wine (New Bern, NC)