Click for Beer
You still can't download a six-pack from the Internet. BeerRightNow.com, though, could be the next best thing.
Beer, delivered right to your doorstep. It's the idea that countless people have dreamed of, and thanks to one Philadelphia man, it could soon become a reality for lazy beer drinkers throughout Center City.
Five years ago, Jake Guzman was a freshman at Temple University. He was sitting in his dorm one day when, all of a sudden, the obvious hit him: College students drink a lot of beer. He knew there was a business opportunity in there somewhere, but what?
The first logical step, he thought, was to open a beer distributor that dealt in bulk orders only, catering to frats and house parties. But the logistics proved too difficult for an 18-year-old college student. Besides, he had a better idea.
"I figured that if I could order beer on the Internet and have it delivered to my house, I'd do it all the fucking time," Guzman says while drinking, appropriately enough, a beer on a recent Sunday at the Bayou Bar & Grill in Manayunk.
Five years later, that idea still lingered in his head, and Guzman decided to do something about it. He began forming a business plan. He hired someone to design a Web site, found partners in local beer distributors who were willing to deliver and formed an infrastructure that would transmit orders via e-mail to retailers.
That's how BeerRightNow.com was born, and it seems like a business that could catch on with Philly beer drinkers quickly. While at the bar, Guzman suddenly turns to a nearby waiter. "Let me ask you something," he says with a grin."If you could order beer on the Internet and have it delivered, would you?"
Without hesitation, the waiter says, "Hell yeah, all the time." He gets this reply often.
After a few lengthy delays caused by some overzealous lawyers, Guzman plans to have the site go live on Sept. 15. Then the only thing between you and a case of Yuengling is a few clicks. Just point your browser to BeerRightNow.com, click on Philly, choose your beer and enter your information. Once the order is complete, it'll be sent to a partnering beer distributor located within your ZIP code. In about five minutes someone will call to confirm the order and the delivery man will be on his way. Whether you ordered a few kegs or just a case, Guzman says his partners are willing to deliver (typical delivery fees in town start at $5). You just sit back and wait for the beer to come rolling in.
Without ever really touching the product, the site simply acts as a convenient middleman between consumer and seller, making money by taking a percentage cut of each sale. Guzman says his job is, in essence, to act as a marketer whose mission is to "connect people who want to buy beer with people who want to sell beer."
One person who is really excited about that connection is Nick Dinges, the social chairman of the University of Pennsylvania's Delta Kappa Epsilon chapter. "I think it will be a good service to us," says Dinges. "If it gets us a large amount of beer every week, and it's cheap and fast, then what could be better?"
And even though many frats consume ungodly amounts of beer, they aren't likely to be the only customers. "I'm all in favor of this idea," says Lew Bryson, a local beer and spirits writer and author of Pennsylvania Breweries, a detailed guide to the state's beer makers. "Going out for beers is a great thing, but having friends over for beers is just as great. No-brainer: [Beer delivery] is a major plus for Philadelphia."
After months of toiling away nights after working a day job, Guzman expects to launch the site with marketing events and parties. Initially, deliveries will only cover the area between Washington and Girard avenues, from river to river, plus University City. But as Guzman partners with more distributors, he expects to expand the service area to include not just all of Philly, but all of Pennsylvania and other major cities as well. And if BeerRightNow.com does take off big, Guzman pledges not to turn it into a soulless corporation.
"I don't want this to be a big raging machine that forgets who it's helping," says Guzman. "You know, that's the fat lazy guy on the couch with a computer nearby who wants to get drunk.
"We want to help that guy get drunk."