One Slippery Rock Township business is looking to expand into the wine and liquor business.
Ben Franklin’s Taproom, Grille & Bottle Shop, located along Route 422 east of New Castle and just miles from Interstate 79, circulated a petition to put a question on the ballot in November’s election as to whether township residents would allow the sale of the two adult beverages in restaurants.
Daniel Jacobs, owner of Ben Franklin’s Taproom, said he turned the petition over to the Lawrence County Board of elections yesterday afternoon. The document required 144 signatures to be placed on the ballot, and Jacobs said “there were close to 300” signatures.
“The response to the petition has been overwhelmingly positive,” Jacobs said. “The women have been really, really excited. A lot of them don’t care for beer, and a lot of them do. The ones who don’t like beer but like a glass of wine are really excited.”
Currently, the business has a malt beverage license, which allows the sale of beer onsite and to go in the form of six and 12 packs. The sale of liquor and wine is restricted in the township.
Jacobs said getting the question placed on the ballot is steps that have to be followed under the state’s liquor laws.
“The voters of Slippery Rock Township get to vote on it in the General Election to say they will allow or they are not going to allow it,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs said the majority of the requests the restaurant receives are from customers wanting a glass of wine with their meal.
The hope is to capture customers who may be lost due to a lack of wine provisions.
“We are modeling ourselves after the more successful restaurants people go to to have a beer, glass of wine or soda pop with dinner,” Jacobs said. “It is more to give customers the diversity they are looking for with their dinner.
Jacobs said the business has already gone through one transition and getting the approval for the sale of the beverages would be another step in the growth process.
“Well, expanding the food menu was a logical next step, changing the original format of the business which wasn’t working,” Jacobs said. “We are alwyas adding food people request.”
The longtime business owner said he didn’t expect to work to get the question on the ballot this year.
“We didn’t expect to do this until next year,” Jacobs said. “We were being proactive, looking ahead to next year and contacted the Liquor Control Board to get out P’s and Q’s in order. They said why not do it this year, and that left us a short window to get this in place for the November election.
“We are a ‘Mom and Pop’ place, and we are trying to compete with all the other competition out there. This will even the playing field. We consider ourselves a clean, respectable place. We encourage everyone to come out and give it a try, if they haven’t already.”
The business currently employs close to 40 people, and Jacobs said there is more to come.
“We are getting ready to open the back patio,” Jacobs said. “To give an indication of the road we are going down, and it is definitely a better road than a place that is open until 1:30 or 2 a.m. We have no intentions of doing that. With the back patio, we have a couple functions, showers and a luncheon coming up.”
This is the second time Jacobs has taken his case to the voters. Slippery Rock Township residents obliged him in 2015, voting 280-258 to approve his efforts to get a license to allow retail sales of up to two six-packs of beer and on-premise consumption of beer at his business.
