This article is a re-post originally written by Ezra Johnson-Greenough for The New School and published on Sept. 27, 2022. Original article
John’s Marketplace is opening their third location in Beaverton, Oregon. The locally run and long-running independent craft beer and wine bottleshop will open a new deli and beer bar with outdoor seating and the massive selection of bottles and cans they are known for. It’s all part of a big Beaverton expansion that recently saw three taprooms open second locations there.
When brothers Rob and Paul Petros purchased the original John’s Marketplace in 2016 the business had already gone through multiple owners, and transitioned from neighborhood convenience store to renowned beer store. It was already one of the best known places to purchase bottles and cans to-go in the state (and the west coast), but the Petros took it to the next level by modernizing the business model.
Originally founded in 1999, the Multnomah Village store underwent a series of upgrades that slowly scaled back the produce and grocery goods in favor of beer and wine. Shortly after acquiring John’s Marketplace, the Petros embraced the increasing demand for draft beer by adding taps to create a beer bar and deli inside. The brand refresh and updating of the already successful small bottleshop led to John’s Marketplace SE Powell and a popular connected food cart pod that opened in July 2020. With a little more than a year in southeast Portland John’s won the coveted Best Bottleshop Award at the 2022 Oregon Beer Awards earlier this year and that too has become a top destination spot for beer nerds.
Rob and Paul Petros have been looking around for the right space to open a third location for some time, they nearly pulled the trigger on a location in N. Portland’s St. Johns neighborhood but had second thoughts and narrowly averted disaster when the building went up in flames shortly after they passed on it. The goal was to find 5-8k sq. ft. space that was easy to get to and centrally located for a wide demographic in an underserved area for small brewery bottleshop options. They had been eyeing Beaverton for 6 years until they finally settled on a slightly smaller space at 3700 SW Hall St. John’s Marketplace Beaverton replaces Chelsea Audio Video in the Hall Street Center shopping plaza that they share with the new location of the acclaimed DeCarli’s Italian restaurant, and is a short walk from the Beaverton Transit Center and the new Binary Brewing, and just a few more blocks away from Loyal Legion and Ex Novo Brewing’s Beaverton locations. When they started looking at Beaverton it was still pretty much bereft of craft beer options.
“At the time we didn’t even know if we would be able to stay in our Multnomah Village location, and by the time this Beaverton location came around there are 5 or 6 breweries opening in the area and they are coming hard and they are still coming strong. It’s a hot area and growth is good, we kind of look at it like ‘a rising tide raises all boats’” says Paul Petros.
The increased competition from breweries opening multiple taprooms and chain grocery stores steep discounts has been putting pressure on the small independent bottleshops and beer bars. But the Petros take it in stride, while putting more thought into their strategy by appealing to beer tourism, embracing food service and draft beer, and promoting events that bring in new and engaged audiences.
“Breweries are amazing, but why don’t you come to us first, sample a bunch of them, and zero in on the ones you really think are cool and that you want to try more of. Then you can go there and try their whole lineup. But we can be kind of like a gatekeeper for helping build it all, so instead of pushing back against it we work with that tide,” says Paul Petros.
That approach means you will find an even more eclectic selection at John’s Marketplace Beaverton with less big brands and more wine. They have also been finding success with cross-promotional wine and beer tastings coinciding with each other, and food pairings with small artisan producers they have been seeking out. They have found this creates more cross drinkers and exciting events that support more small businesses like theirs and help create new fans. The appeal is to “anyone who is thirsty” as Paul puts it.
“We have taken a cue from people say ‘oh you guys are like the Disneyland of beer!’ or ‘oh woah you are like a circus of beer,’” adds Rob Petros. “We aren’t in the beer business we are in the hospitality business. When you come in it’s up to us to create an experience that you walk away from and go ‘oh that was really worth my time’ it’s a wonderful world we live in with all of the options of beer, wine, coffee. It’s just let’s bring everything the northwest has going on in one place.”
Based on the success of the deli menu and draft selection they added to the OG John’s Marketplace in Multnomah Village, they went on to embrace the bar and an adjacent food truck pod when they opened location two on Powell. Being next to a food truck pod as the only beer purveyor has been great, and really cemented the value of providing food to customers to get them into the taproom. But it’s also made valuable parking spaces hard to find that are essential for their customers loading up on bottles and cans. In Beaverton they don’t have space for food trucks.
“We really did not want to put in a kitchen here, we are not restaurant guys, but food is really critical to draft beer. You gotta be smart, stick with what you know and do a good job with it,” says Rob. So, they are diving back into the deli concept with simple and affordable delicious food. The smashburger in Multnomah Village has been a smash hit, and they found people come there just to get one and of sit down for a beer when they do.
To make the upcoming Beaverton space more conducive to the bar experience, they are partially separating the taproom and deli from the bottleshop side and creating an opening to walk-through to a large covered and heated outdoor patio on the side of the building. There will be a beer window to serve directly to the beer garden, and an increased draft selection of 16 taps, highly curated to represent craft both local and international.
“The biggest thing about draft is the cache, everybody loves to pour a beer, they love to get a beer poured from them, the breweries love to sell a keg, there is the whole mystique about having a draft beer instead of giving it out of a can,” says Paul about the growing appeal of the taproom business model.
Packaged beer like bottles and cans is still the key to the John’s Marketplace business, despite their increasing presence in the draft beer sector. According to the Petros’ packaged beer is about 70% of their revenue, “the beauty of the draft is it can help offset margins, we haven’t raised our margins but we have raised our prices in accordance with the cost from the brewers and the distributors, every pint you pour you make a couple bucks more than a can,” says Rob.
The Petros’ attribute their success to adapting to a changing market and finding great people, which is more of a challenge than ever post-pandemic, but they hope it will be easier in Beaverton if they can get it right. That involves successfully transporting their culture into a very different part of town with it’s own set of needs. John’s Marketplace Beaverton has to feel like one of their classic breweriana filled locations but also be adaptable. “We have a challenge, when we open a store and we go into a new neighborhood we have to be really respectful of it, our brand becomes kind of a secondary issue, ‘how does our brand fit in the neighborhood?’ not like we have a template and we are just going to pop it in,” says Rob.
John’s Marketplace Beaverton is about 10% smaller than Powell and 20% smaller than Multnomah Village locations, however the cooler capacity at Beaverton will be greater than either and the selection just as diverse but with more careful choices. Instead of stocking all the formats of every popular brands flagships (ie 12oz, 16oz, 19.2oz, cans, bottles) they will limit it to one of the best-selling format. You will see less discount brands and more of the small guys and out of the region breweries that are more difficult to discover. “We feel our role is to the little guys that need the help. Sure we support the big guys, but they don’t need us anymore,” says Rob.
The John’s Beaverton build-out is just getting underway with hopes to get open before the end of the year. It will be the last location of John’s in the planning stages but the Petros are not sure if it will be the last-last with plenty of interest from Eugene, Bend, and Vancouver. Plus, they are still hoping that the OLCC will allow them to add liquor to the bottleshop someday. All the work they have put into growing and maintaining one of the country’s top bottle shops they still know that success is never a given.
“All the studies we have done from traffic to demographics to market analysis says this location should do just fine, but you never really know until you open the doors how it’s really gonna do…You could find out that Beaverton hates beer,” laughs Rob.
“Or they just don’t like our beers!” adds Paul with a chuckle.
As ripe as the Beaverton beer scene is becoming it still doesn’t have much as far as a beer store that stocks the level of options you can find in Portland and certainly none on the level of John’s Marketplace, so we are betting the locals will embrace it and they make some new connoisseurs in the process.