The most unusual flight I ever served at RockPit

I always refer to this blog as a true insider look at RockPit Brewing. This week is no exception. I’m giving you a look at how and why we design your experience at RockPit using “moments”.

Let me explain…

In the book, “The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact” the authors explain why we tend to remember the best or worst moment of an experience, as well as the last moment, and forget the rest.

For instance, if you go to Disney World and spend the day rating the last hour of your day on a scale of 1-10, it might look something like this:

9 AM – Parking and waiting to get into the park: 6

10 AM – Saw the Magic Kingdom for the first time: 10

12 PM – Waiting in line for a ride: 5

1 PM – Still waiting in line: 3

2 PM – Seriously? This line is 2 1/2 hours? 1

3 PM – OMG Rode Space Mountain for the first time!!!: 10
…
You get the idea. After your day at Disney was over your average for the whole day would be around a 6 (don’t fact check the math, I’m making it up).

Now… When I ask you two months later to rate your trip, you’d rate it a 9.

Why? Because you remember the good stuff and mostly forget the bad stuff.

Kind of interesting, right?

So that’s the approach we take at RockPit when we design your experience. How many good moments can we create and how can we minimize (or eliminate the bad moments)?

When you first walk up to RockPit, the moment you see our building with the garage full of windows and get just a glimpse of the brewery, good moment.

When you first walk into RockPit and see a mini “mining town” type of brewery as well as the whole brewery within just a few seconds, good moment.

When you sit down and the beertender introduces themselves within a reasonable time, good moment. Conversely, this is where a bad moment can occur. If you’re waiting for more than a few minutes, the “bad” moment starts to set in. That’s why we try to minimize the amount of time before we first make that introduction.

When you get your first beer or flight, good moment.

When you meet one of the owners, good moment (Depending on who it is 😉)

You get the idea.

Your experience has been designed to stack the good moments up and minimize the typical bad moments you can experience at breweries.

We wanted to create an experience like no other found at breweries and thinking in moments has helped us do that.

But it also taught us how to recognize when a unique moment can be created.

For instance, a few weeks back I created a moment that won’t easily be forgotten.
A couple had their son and parents with them. When I took their flight sheets to them, mom asked if I could give a flight sheet to their son to draw on.

“Absolutely,” I said.

When I returned with the flights for them, mom handed me the sons flight sheet and said “Here’s his flight sheet”

I looked at it, chuckled and said “Ha! It looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics. I’ll see if I can translate it for you”

Right then, I knew I had a chance to create a memorable moment.

Instead of handing the sheet back to him, I took it and started to make the most unusual flight ever.

I grabbed some chocolate milk, lemonade and a few Gatorades from the fridge. People at the bar were REALLY confused as to what I was doing. The looks were hilarious. I didn’t care. I was creating something special.

I walked back to the table, handed the son his flight and said “Here, I translated that for you. You got chocolate milk, lemonade, fruit punch, and blue cherry Gatorade”

The look on his face was priceless. Mom, Dad, and the Grandparents were thrilled. Imagine how you’d feel if this were your kid? Imagine this happened to you at 5 years old?

And that’s all it took to create a moment they’ll never forget. It was an 11 on scale of 1-10.

(We always try to make it an 11 out of 10 experience)

Grandma even left a review for us about it.

And this is just one example. There are dozens of unique experiences that we have created at RockPit just simply by paying attention to the situation and reacting.

From Colleen sitting with a crying Navy vet after watching the National Anthem to Jeremy taking care of a bill for a couple that just got married (Hey Devin and Kritzia).

Now here’s my challenge for you: Create a moment for someone this week. Need a little help? Read the first chapter of The Power of Moments. You can read it for free if you click the link at the top of this post.

In it, you’ll start to understand how this can help you not only in your business life but your personal life too. Admittedly, I haven’t translated this into my personal life too much yet, but I’m working on it (sorry babe).

Once you figure out how simple it is to create a moment for someone, you’ll start to easily recognize them. And if you act on them, you’ll become that person that everyone wants to be around.

And let me know if you need my help creating a moment for someone at RockPit. We’re always happy to help. 
 

Who else is ready for college football?

Being born in Pittsburgh, I didn’t really have much exposure to college ball in the first 10 years of my life. It was ALL Steelers. When I moved to Central Florida when I was 12 (had a short detour in South Florida), I was introduced to the religion of college football.

I had seen the passion for sports, but nothing on the level of this. I had friends who were fans of the Seminoles, Hurricanes, Fighting Irish, etc. They argued about it. The spent Saturdays with their families watching it.

I didn’t have a team to follow so I just watched with my friends. Eventually, it was the Florida Gators that caught my eye. It was a few years into Spurrier’s reign. I simply loved the way they played. It also helped that one of my best friends was a Gators fan.

When I attended my first Gators game back in ’06, I was properly introduced to “Saturdays in the South”

I’ve been to NFL games. I like them. But the pageantry and tradition in college ball are unlike anything else I’ve witnessed at an NFL level. It also helps that the players don’t complain about their helmets.

So, it’s only natural that I’m super excited to be watching the game this Saturday with y’all at RockPit. We’re going to deck out the place. The game is going to be on all 5 of our big screen TV’s and the sound will be turned all the way up to 11.

And like the tradition of “Saturdays in the South”, we’ll be doing college football watch parties every Saturday at RockPit.

I have to warn you that Jeremy is a Bama fan, so their games will be watched at RockPit as well. 😊

This is our first season as a brewery during football season and I couldn’t be more excited to share our space as the official “Saturdays in the South” brewery.