Our concept was simple, give craft beer drinkers a deserving place in Nola to explore the world of craft beer with other beer nerds and enthusiast.
Our Story
504 Craft Beer Reserve (504CBR) opened in 2016 in the heart of New Orleans. Initially, as a beer store, then evolving into a relaxing space for beer enthusiasts to come together. By 2018, it was clear that our business wouldn’t survive on beer-to-go alone. So, we went back to the Commissioner for help with our license so we could achieve the concept we wanted all along. We built out the tap room and by mid-2019, we had gained momentum and our reputation was steadily growing. Then three days before our 4th anniversary festival, Covid-19 arrived, canceled our event and wreaked havoc on our business ever since.
With the taproom forced closed, our sole revenue became to-go sales. Cash flow was shrinking along with any reserves but did not know how long the pandemic would last or the long-term effects it would have. In truth, nobody truly knew what to expect. So, we remained open even though 504CBR was losing money each week. This decision allowed us to survive through the darkest months and our employees were happy to be earning. We didn’t qualify for PPP, but our EIDL application was submitted and that would help us through this. Unfortunately, we were informed that our application was denied.
The EIDL program had a couple specific qualifications, one of which involved loss of sales. Given that our sales didn’t drop more than 30% for the necessary periods, the SBA denied our initial application. We quickly submitted a request for reconsideration where we thoroughly explained the loss of our draft sales and the effects that had on our profits. For a while, we were hopeful that our request and detailed explanation would be sufficient to qualify for something, We still have not heard back from the SBA.
We believe 504 is a business worth saving.
