Is Bed Bath & ... Baco heading for more parts of NY State?

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.

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. 

No word at this point about whether the household furnishings chain will be doing anything along those lines with its many other stores throughout New York State, but the odds seem in favor given that so many are located in affluent suburbs.

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• Go here to visit Dowd On Drinks
• Go here to visit Notes On Napkins
• Go here to visit the Capital Region Brew Trail

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