Bottle King Reopening NJ Liquor Stores After Coronavirus Shutdown

Eric Kiefer
Updated ·3 min read

LIVINGSTON, NJ — New Jersey liquor store chain Bottle King will be reopening its doors to customers next week after temporarily restricting sales to delivery and curbside pickup due to the coronavirus.

Bottle King will reopen its 15 stores to customers who want to buy their alcohol at the register beginning Monday, May 18.

Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration has ruled that liquor stores are among the “essential businesses” allowed to operate in the statewide coronavirus shutdown.

Bottle King, which has a corporate headquarters and a store in Livingston, also has locations in Chatham, Dumont, East Windsor, Glen Ridge, Glen Rock, Hillsborough, Hillsdale, Ledgewood, Mansfield, Middletown, Morris Plains, Princeton, Ramsey and Wayne.

A company spokesperson told Patch that Bottle King will be taking the following steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19:

“We have already installed sneeze guards at all registers. We have spacing stickers at all checkouts. We will be limiting our customer count in every location. We will have spacing tape outside our entrance so customers will be safely separated while they wait to enter our stores.”

Bottle King began alerting customers about changes due to the virus on March 13. At the time, precautions included increased cleaning, offering sanitizing wipes and suspending all liquor and food sampling in its stores.

View this post on Instagram
The safety and health of our employees, customers, and the general public are of top priority. We feel it’s important to reach out to you about what we’re doing in our stores to ensure our guests and team members stay healthy and safe with the recent outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19). We always strive to have clean, well-run stores, but we have taken additional precautions considering recent events. Increased frequency and rigor of cleaning in all stores. Providing sanitizing wipes at all checkouts for customer use. Suspending all beer, wine and spirits sampling in all Bottle King stores. Suspending snack and cheese sampling in all Vineyard Market locations. Free Local Delivery Update: As of Friday, March 13th we are continuing to offer our local delivery service. Please be advised that due to high demand, we are handling each delivery request on a case-by-case basis as our scheduling permits. The following policies have been enacted for the safety of our employees and customers. Delivery employees are not permitted to enter any residence. State law requires all orders must be physically received by someone 21+ with proof of ID and signature. We will continue to monitor the situation and work in conjunction with state and local health officials. All of us at Bottle King are grateful for your loyalty and are committed to providing you with a great experience.
A post shared by Bottle King (@njbottleking) on Mar 13, 2020 at 7:41am PDT

As the viral outbreak spread in New Jersey, Bottle King closed all of its stores on March 22 and restricted all sales to “curbside pickup and local delivery only.” But the demand for alcohol didn’t abate, the company said.

On March 27, Bottle King posted the following update on social media:

“Due to overwhelming demand, all Bottle King locations are temporarily suspending local delivery until Monday, March 30. We will be accepting curbside pickup for all orders. Any local delivery orders already placed will still be scheduled over the next three days. We anticipate taking local delivery orders again on Monday, March 30.”

The company offered another update on April 9, reporting that its stores filled more than 45,000 orders for curbside pickup and local delivery over a two-week period.

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This article originally appeared on the Livingston Patch