Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Pasternak
Hi Alex, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I, along with my husband/best friend, had the dream to create something that expressed and represented our talents, our family and the beautiful property that we owned…essentially to allow other people to experience all of that with us! We quickly realized we had all the pieces of the puzzle within our family to take the leap and start the brewery (accountant, marketing, engineer/brewer). To us it was always about more than being just a brewery. We are now six years in! Still having fun, working too hard most times, but learning great life lessons and meeting lifelong friends along the way.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has been quite the bumpy road. We opened in January 2019, had a great year under our belt, and then COVID really took us off track from all of our projections and expectations. The pandemic reset consumer preferences and challenged some prior business strategies. Customers want to be accommodated in such an all-encompassing way now. It makes it hard to satisfy everyone, but people appreciate the effort, so we give it our best every day! We take notes and improve. Continuous improvement is an old corporate slang we brought with us to this venture! We are fortunate to have a space that is large enough to serve as a community gathering spot and private event venue. That has proven to be a needed resource for the community, and we are happy to provide it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Roughhouse Brewing is a small brewery located in the outskirts of San Marcos on our family’s 50-acre ranch. We are brewer-owned, which means my husband brews every single beer we make. We like to keep it small and personal so that we stay engaged and our customers get a real experience about who we are and what the property has to offer. We have a cave on site that we discovered during construction, so that is always a fun talking point and an ENDLESS project for us. Not tours yet, but we are working on it! I am proud of the family brand we have created. The name Roughhouse was chosen because it had a nice ‘ring to it’. My husband and I both love the comfort of family and the fun (and chaos) it can bring. We are hard to find and it has taken every guerilla marketing strategy out there to get people to understand the mix of playful and perfectionism that we offer, but after six years it’s fun to look back and see the network of customers we’ve built! It’s a lot of talking and reaching out and dropping off free beer and saying yes when you probably shouldn’t and saying no when you probably should have said yes, but in the end hard work will get you far! We are proud of our work ethic and our high standards that have built a reliable brand for the underserved area!
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
We’ve taken several calculated risks during our six years. One risk we took was during the pandemic by investing in a $$ canning line when the industry was tracking low on bottle sales. Another risk was investing in private events by building spaces (outdoor structures) that could serve anywhere from 20 to 70 person parties without impacting our regular service. Risk for us is a calculation. If a low investment in time or money has even the slim chance of yielding large outcomes, then it’s totally worth it. The harder things to swallow is when you really want to do something that has a high investment and a low potential for good returns – you have to have the strength to say no to some passion projects that don’t make sense. I struggle with that one a lot because this brewery is a creative outlet for me. I often want to drain an entire day painting old wine barrels or weeding the brewery garden, but timesheets, meetings, menu, emails all come first!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.roughhousebrewing.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roughhousebrewing/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoughhouseBrewing
Image Credits
Roughhouse Brewing
