Brewpub culture in the U.S. is long-established. It’s arguably the backbone of the craft beer industry because, as a business model, it’s more stable, defensible, and accessible to a wide audience. The brewpub is as much a local restaurant as a brewery, after all. What we’re experiencing now in terms of craft’s more recent zeitgeist owes a massive tip of the hat to the bedrock of our brewpubs around the country.

But these days, it’s the taprooms gaining all the attention. They’re high-margin, direct-sale environments where you come face-to-face with your customer. And more often than not, when we’re working with a client to launch a brewery, taprooms are top-of-mind. But the idea of running a restaurant or hospitality space is not. “I don’t want to have to handle the complexity of a restaurant” and “I don’t want this to become a bar” are common sentiments.

Taprooms are often thought of as a simple extension of the manufacturing environment—a tour and tasting space. But as their popularity and revenue-generating capabilities continue to expand, they’re creeping into the space formerly occupied by bars. And as they add on food trucks and entertainment, they start to fill the role of a brewpub or restaurant as well.

This is all exciting evolution in the beer world. But there’s a mental shift that hasn’t occurred around these changes toward a hybrid manufacturing, hospitality, and restaurant environment in the brewery taproom or brewpub that puts a lot of people at risk. It’s a risk that experienced bar owners and restaurateurs are somewhat more familiar with, even if they remain largely ineffective at combating it. And that’s gender-based violence in the workplace—sexual harassment, intimidation and, in some cases, outright physical assault of a sexual or gender-motivated nature. And it’s not a small problem. In the hospitality industry, it’s astonishingly rampant.