The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board announced on Friday it will expand curbside pickup of phone orders to 389 more Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores beginning Monday.
In Centre County, the service is already being offered at the 1682 N. Atherton St. and 127 Southridge Plaza stores in State College. Starting next week it will also be available at the following stores:
– Hamilton Square Shopping Center, 230 Hamilton Avenue, State College, (814) 863-6519
– The Benner Pike Shops, 323 Benner Pike, State College, (814) 689-1366
– Weis Market Shopping Center, 178 Buckaroo Lane, Bellefonte, (814) 355-2395
– 15 West Olive Street, Snow Shoe, (814) 387-4360.
At most stores, phone orders of up to six bottles will be accepted on a first-call, first-served basis beginning at 9 a.m. each day Monday through Saturday until the store reaches its maximum number of orders for the day (between 50-100), with pickup appointments scheduled between 9 a.m.-6 p.m.
The Snow Shoe store will have limited pickup hours of 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.
Payment by credit card is required and no returns are allowed. Store staff will provide information to callers about products available for purchase.
A total of 565 stores in Pennsylvania will be offering the service.
The state shuttered physical locations of the liquor stores in March, but this week began offering limited curbside pickup at select locations. Statewide, customers reported frequently being unable to get through on the phone as stores reached their maximum number of orders .
“We acknowledge that Pennsylvanians are frustrated with busy signals and want broader access to wine and spirits, so after learning from our experiences this past week, we’ve made improvements to process orders faster, expand the hours we take orders by phone, and be more flexible in scheduling pickups, even the same day, if pickup appointments are available,” PLCB Chairman Tim Holden said.
The PLCB expects to increase fulfillment capacity as well to allow for more orders over the coming days and weeks.
During the first four days of curbside pickup this week, stores had 38,145 orders totaling $3.64 million, according to the PLCB.
Online sales also were shut down in March but resumed on April 1 with limited sales of up to six bottles per order from a reduced catalog of at FineWineAndGoodSpirits.com. Access to the website has been randomized, to prevent overwhelming the site and order abuse and to prolong sales throughout the day. But the system left some frustrated with being unable to purchase anything at all on a given day.
Holden said capacity for online orders continues to grow, with more than 100 locations packing orders.
“We’re making strides in expanding service to Fine Wine & Good Spirits customers, and we hope that adding hundreds more locations for curbside pickup will help us get through this surge of demand for wine and spirits,” Holden said. “Once again, we ask customers to remain patient, and we’re hopeful that the more e-commerce and curbside pickup orders we can process, over time, the better we’ll be able to serve more and more Pennsylvanians through this pandemic.”
