Joe Tota is an ultrarunner, a former technology consultant and he just so happens to be the founder and CEO of what will soon be Naperville’s newest pour-your-own beer taproom. Building off of his experiences working with technology, Tota decided to leverage his experience aiding others with technology adoption and began to assemble a business plan.
“I was a technology consultant and I thought that… really I thought ‘is there a better way to create a restaurant taproom experience?’ and ‘how can technology help that?’ So I did some research and was able to kind of design the concept of having self-pour beer, self-ordering and integrating a smartphone app. So it was just an idea that I had; I came up with the idea on the Red Arrow Highway up in Michigan, I go up there quite a bit… I put together a business plan in February (2016) and then the first Red Arrow opened in December (2017) so it was a short period of time to get it off the ground.”
Tota studied corporate communications during his undergraduate career at Northern Illinois University and between classes and working at LensCrafters, he also found time to work shifts at Molly’s Eatery & Drinkery in DeKalb — a cornerstone establishment of any NIU student’s college experience.
Looking back on these experiences Tota says they certainly helped in the opening and running of Red Arrow. “Other than having a little experience at Molly’s in college I never really worked in a restaurant — I did work in retail,” says Tota. “A lot of those things I learned about how to run a business, how to operate a retail store certainly apply now, you know for running a self-pour taproom and restaurant.”
Tota explains the mechanics behind measuring every ounce of beer dispensed in the restaurant. | Photo by Tom Miller
With the recent success of SixtyFour – A Wine Bar in the new Water Street development, Naperville does seem to be very accepting of the pour-your-own concept. Tota realizes though that this acceptance may not be universal. “I know self-pour is new, and there’s sometimes a lot of concerns about how that works. We believe that self-pour is a very safe way to serve beer because we can track every ounce that’s poured and we know who it goes to.” This is because Tota and certain staff members are, at any time, able to use the back end of their app to see who is drinking in their taproom, what they are drinking and how much of it they have had.
Patrons have the choice of picking up either a reloadable black ‘pour card’ which completely eliminates the need for any human interaction upon departure by effectively checking you out after each and every beer pour, or the white ‘pour card’ which patrons are able to obtain at the beginning of their visit by preauthorizing a credit card and aggregating charges on the ‘pour card’ during the duration of their visit prior to settling up at the front desk on the way out.
So, what’s the draw of a pour-your-own, by the ounce tap room? Tota has an answer for that too. “It’s a long drive to do 48 breweries in one trip but you can do them all here in one day. I mean, literally, if you wanted to drink 32 different breweries you could drink one ounce of each and you’ve had two pints of beer.”
Red Arrow Tap Room’s Naperville location is slated to open in the spring of 2018 which, Tota says, means he has until June 20. Different from the Elmhurst location, Naperville will feature more wines and ciders, a bar with craft cocktails and a larger space in general. Russ Hillard spent over 10 years as the general manager at Heaven on Seven’s Naperville location up until their closing late last year and will be returning to the helm for Red Arrow’s Naperville launch as general manager.
