Is Bed Bath & ... Beer heading for the Capital Region?

The corporate folks at the Bed Bath & Beyond chain won't speak publicly about their multi-state foray into alcohol and food sales, but their actions are loud enough to fuel speculation about continued expansion of that niche.

No word at this point about whether the household furnishings chain will be doing anything along those lines with its four stores in the Capital Region. Corporate executives' practice has been to answer questions from the media and the public only at their annual meeting in June. But, down in Brooklyn,  BB&B has just opened in soft mode a restaurant called Bay Market Kitchen where wine and beer are being served. The restaurant is part at BB&B's 120,000-square-foot Liberty View Industrial Plaza store in Sunset Park.

While a number of New York craft beers (Sixpoint, Ommegang, Brooklyn, Greenport Harbor, etc.) and ciders produced by several New York wineries (Applewood, Wolffer Estate) are offered, Bay Market's initial beverage menu ignores New York wines. 

The alcohol sales effort for BB&B locations in affluent areas began in the Cleveland suburb of Solon, OH, and the Miami suburb of Aventura, FL, in  2015. Now, work has been sped up on licensing and renovations that will allow sales of wine and beer at BB&B locations in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, IL, and renewal of licenses at many of the Cost Plus World Market subsidiaries in Texas, New Jersey and elsewhere that it acquired in 2012. 

BB&B has locations at 32 Wolf Road in Colonie, in the Shoppes At Wilton in Saratoga County, in the Mohawk Commons in Niskayuna, and at 388 Feura Bush Road in Glenmont in Albany County, all regarded as affluent suburbs such as those being targeted for alcohol sales by the corporation.

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• Go here to visit the Capital Region Brew Trail
• Go here to visit Dowd's New York Wines Notebook
• Go here to visit Notes On Napkins 

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