Ah, I can see that look of confusion on your face. You’re wondering if you’re seeing things, if you can trust your eyes anymore. Make no mistake my young friend; we are indeed selling Surly Darkness for $36.99. Quite the bargain, if you ask me.
What’s that? You would have paid less at other beer stores? Feh! Other beer stores are nothing to us. You’re welcome to them. This is Surdyk’s! We’ve been your parents’ favorite liquor store and cheese shop for years. They can’t get enough of us. We’re in the kind of trendy, fairly safe Minneapolis neighborhood that draws upper-class middle-aged people from all over the Twin Cities! Why, just look around! We dominate this corner that has everything your aunt and uncle from Prior Lake or Apple Valley would want in their big city experience. They can have a nice over-priced little bite to eat at Rachel’s, browse the knick-knacks at Bibelot and then spend the rest of their money here, with us at Surdyk’s. We are so non-threatening; they wouldn’t dare question our pricing.
You disagree? Allow me to change your mind. Built in to that $37 price tag is the implied privilege of being able to shop at Surdyk’s. You pay these kinds of prices here because you don’t want to shop where poor people shop, do you? Of course you don’t.
We do everything we can to cultivate our upper-class culture. Need the perfect cheese to accompany that wine you’re bringing to your fancy party? Step on over here, into our cheese shop. Looking for that new vodka filtered seventeen times through the petrified horn of a prehistoric water buffalo? We’ve got it in two sizes, and let me add – you’ve got impeccable taste. Can’t be troubled to carry your own purchases out to your car? Who has the energy these days? Let me get one of my underlings to do it. Don’t you just love obscure Alsatian wines? Come to our weeklong festival celebrating them! Want a limited edition beer from one of America’s best breweries? I’m sure you’re prepared to open your wallet a little wider. We would be doing our customers a disservice by charging anything less than $37.
Not everyone shares our outlook, we know. Even Surly employees themselves were off-put when we charged $37 dollars for a bottle of Darkness. That is regrettable but they have to put some of the blame on themselves. Dropping their shipment off at the end of the work day ensured that there would be plenty of bottles available to our friends who actually work for a living and couldn’t leave their offices to pick up a bottle in St. Louis park at 11:00. Our clientele are willing to pay top-dollar for premium merchandise and by producing such a very limited, high quality product Surly has certainly had a hand in raising demand. It’s simple economics, my good man. Besides, what are they going to do about it, not sell to us? Ha! We’re Surdyk’s!
