Before they started Skyduster Beer, co-founders Nick Smith and Jonny Marler kept having the same thought when they visited upscale Los Angeles restaurants. On menu after menu, they found Peroni, Stella, and Lagunitas. But why weren’t they seeing more locally-made, easy-drinking beers that paired with the food?
When the pandemic shut down restaurants, both founders found themselves starting over. Smith had been running Waltz In, a restaurant booking software company, and Marler had been selling beverages on-premise.
Years of conversation turned into a decision in one phone call. Marler’s pitch was “Hey, how about now?” Smith’s answer was “Let’s try.”
The first sale went to Market Venice, the restaurant run by Marler’s brother, Nick Marler, and his business partner Arvid Harnqvist, in February 2022. Chef Ori Menashe’s restaurants (Bestia, Bavel, and Saffy’s) came next.
The founders built the brand around the plate. “We wanted to be the beer that played second fiddle to the food that the chefs were making,” Smith says.
They wanted to connect people, too. The Skyduster founders believe a beer isn’t just something you choose off a menu. It’s something people bond over, celebrate with and even make lasting memories while enjoying. A great beer may never be the sole reason for getting together, but for those who love to drink it, it can usually boost the experience.
And Skyduster has created a place for those moments to happen. It runs a 17,000-square-foot brewery, taproom and sports bar in downtown LA with a full food menu. The taps pour Super Dry Lager, Italian Pils, West Coast IPA and Citrus Wit, with more beers on the way.
A room that size raised the stakes on the point of sale. Here is how the founders chose one, and how it holds up when the taproom is full.
The challenge: Opening a taproom built for 2,000 guests
The taproom was the founders’ first brick-and-mortar operation. That meant choosing a point of sale from scratch, starting from what the room would actually demand.
“One of the things that we set out to do was to have a bar where we could have 2,000 people coming through and everyone was getting beer and food at a pace that we would want to be served,” Smith says.
The founders knew what the taproom needed:
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Speed at volume: Serve big crowds without a backup at the bar.
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Guest-facing service: Take payment without bartenders turning their backs on guests.
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Refunds on the spot: Fix an order for a guest when needed.
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Sales insight: Know when it’s time to change the menu.
Support mattered as much as features. “I think that’s really important in the hospitality industry, is knowing that you’re going to be able to call somebody and have something fixed,” Smith says.
Running a bar on a packed night can be challenging. A slow line or an unresolved glitch mid-service could undercut everything the founders built.
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The solution: Using Square POS for breweries to keep bartenders facing guests
As the founders compared options, Square stood out on both counts. Smith says it “had all the feature set that we needed,” and the people behind it were just as much of a draw. Friends at the team behind Etra told Marler the best part of working with Square was that “they really will pick up your call.”
“We felt welcome into the Square family,” Marler says.
The taproom runs on Square for Restaurants. At the bar, bartenders check out guests on handhelds (Square Handheld). “We like to use handhelds at our bars so that we’re not having our bartenders turn around when they’re doing the payment with guests that come through,” Smith says. “Everything about the software is very fast.”
That’s the point of a pocketable handheld POS design: payment happens wherever the guest is standing.
For another brewery story, read how Reformation Brewery drives growth with loyalty.
The same speed carries through the rest of the shift. “We take fast payments, people get refunds when they need, and we get a lot of insight into how our business is doing, and it’s all at our fingertips,” Smith says.
I would say one word for Square would be efficient. … Square surfaces that information really quickly, and it takes payments really quickly, and that’s all I really need from a point of sale.”
Nick Smith → Co-founder, Skyduster Beer
Impact: Faster service, clearer numbers, and support that picks up
So far, Smith says Square has “done everything we needed it to do.” Marler watches the numbers and describes growth plainly. The business is “increasing gradually, not too high, not too low.”
For Marler, reliability is the headline. He says of Square’s support team, “I call them on Saturday at 11 p.m. and they pick up and they help us fix everything.” He calls Square “a company that’s done what it said it was going to do, and it’s held its word.”
The relationship extends past the phone line, too. Square staff come by the bar to hang out with their families. “We took a chance with Square and they stood up to the task. They backed us up. They helped us out. They’re here when we need them,” Marler says.
Community-first beer bars like Harlem Hops build on a similar idea. For Skyduster, what comes next is all about the people it supports.
“Square wants to own LA, and Skyduster wants to own LA,” Marler says. “And when I say own it, I mean actually taking care of people in the industry – showing up for them every day and creating a place where every team member and guest who comes through the door feels connected to a good thing.”
