Two of the three original owners of the Rodizio Grill at the Holiday Inn and Suites downtown parted ways requiring the remaining two owners to get a new beer license for the Brazilian steak house. The bar in the restaurant is the one point of sale in the hotel that can deliver beer to a private event space as well as for room service.
Employees who deliver room service must be certified and check IDs for every drink ordered to prevent minors from being served alcohol, said the owner of the hotel, Roshan Amin.
One of the previous partners of Exile Off Main Street, 1634 Rossville Ave., left the business because of the economic downturn and sold his share to a new investor causing the need for a new beer license. The business is now owned by Martin Thomas Bohannon and Ryan Rothermel. The business is small, with a capacity of 125 with a courtyard that makes the space good for social distancing. The owners are in the process of purchasing a food truck that will be parked outside for selling food, but until then only pre-packaged food will be available.
A new restaurant, Han-Mi Korean Pub, will be opening in the space where Mrs. B’s Reggae Café was located at 3103 Broad St. Soon Hyang Sherrill owns the restaurant and her son, David Sherrill, Jr., will manage it. Both have previous experience in the restaurant industry in Chattanooga.
La Cruda Sports Bar, a small bar with the capacity of 62 including employees, is opening at 5403 Wilbanks Dr. off of Hixson Pike. No food will be prepared on site, but pre-packaged food will be available to accompany beer sales.
A new training law has been put into effect that applies to business which sell beer for both on-site consumption and take-out. Professional training in the sale of beer is now one of the requirements to get a beer license.
Assistant City Attorney 2 Of Foster and beer board members with input from Chattanooga Police Officer John Collins and Beer Board Administer Bertha Lawrence are in the process of creating guidelines to implement that training. They are working together to develop a program that will certify the companies which will provide that training. Members of the board will attend the classes that are offered to make sure they are appropriate and that their programs meet the expectations of the city officials. A process will also be put in place to insure that training programs are real, the actual person doing the training has been certified and a way to document that a person has actually taken the training classes. Because laws change, each training program will be reexamined periodically. This system will be modeled after how the state does ABC recertification in order to be consistent and reduce confusion of business owners.
The five new beer licenses that were approved at the Thursday meeting were all contingent upon everyone who participates in beer sales, having been trained by an approved, certified trainer. Because of the delays and difficulties in establishing the guidelines due to the coronavirus pandemic, businesses that were approved for a license have all been given three months to complete training.