喝酒喝出創意：美國男子發明自助啤酒機

How much do you hate waiting for another beer in a crowded bar?

你有多討厭在擁擠的酒吧中等待啤酒？

It irked Josh Goodman enough to invent a pretty obvious solution -- self-service beer taps.

喬希·古德曼就非常厭煩這個，還因此發明了顯而易見的解決之道：自助啤酒機。

Goodman, 36, recalled the exact moment in late 2008 when his frustration boiled over.

36歲的古德曼回憶起2008年末，他的挫折感達到了極點的那一刻。

"I was hanging out with my friends at a Baltimore sports bar before an Orioles game," he said. "We just couldn't get another beer served to us quickly."

“那是在一次金鶯隊比賽前，我和朋友去巴爾的摩（Baltimore）的一家運動酒吧打發時間，服務員遲遲不給我們上另一杯啤酒。”

Even more than being annoyed, Goodman was struck by how much money the bar must be losing. Almost immediately, he got to work on a self-service beer concept.

除了感到惱火，古德曼更震驚的是這樣這家酒吧會損失多少收入。他幾乎立即就有了研制自助啤酒機的想法。

Within a few months, Goodman had launched PourMyBeer in Chicago (where he'd relocated to be with his wife).

僅僅幾個月后，古德曼就在芝加哥創立了PourMyBeer公司（為了與妻子生活在一起，他遷居到了芝加哥）。

He invested $20,000 of his own funds and partnered with a U.S. manufacturer to make beer tables with two to four self-service taps.

他自己投入了兩萬美元的資金并與一家美國制造商合伙生產帶有兩到四個自助啤酒龍頭的啤酒桌。

In February 2009, Goodman landed his first client: A Baltimore tavern. He spent the next two years growing the business and adding more bars and restaurants.

2009年2月，古德曼有了第一位客戶：巴爾的摩的一家酒館。在之后的兩年里，他不斷拓展業務，增加了很多酒吧和餐廳客戶。

In 2011, PourMyBeer introduced self-service "beer walls," which let people pour their own beer from taps on a wall.

2011年，PourMyBeer又開創自助“啤酒墻”，客人可以使用墻上的龍頭自行倒啤酒。

PourMyBeer has expanded to over 200 restaurants and bars in 28 states and Canada. The concept will roll out in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport this week and in Italy and Brazil later this year.

PourMyBeer自助啤酒機已擴張至美國28個州和加拿大的200多家酒吧和餐館，并計劃本周入駐芝加哥奧黑爾國際機場，今年晚些時候進軍意大利和巴西。

The tables start at $4,000 and the beer walls cost as much as $16,000. It generated more than $400,000 in sales in 2013 and doubled that in 2014. Goodman expects to take in close to $2 million in revenue this year -- which would make it the company's first profitable year.

啤酒桌起價4000美元，啤酒墻要價高達1.6萬美元。2013年，PourMyBeer的銷售額已超40萬美元，在2014年更是翻番。今年古德曼預計將獲得近200萬美元的收入，這也將使他的公司迎來第一個盈利年。

"Our business customers tell us that they've cut down on waste and they're selling twice as much beer on average," said Goodman.

古德曼說，“商業用戶告訴我們說浪費減少了，銷售的啤酒量是平均銷售量的兩倍。”

Vocabulary

irk: 使惱怒，使厭煩

self-service: 自助

recall: 回想起，記起

boil over: (情緒) 失去控制，爆發

relocate: 遷移，重新安置

land: 贏得，獲得

tavern: 酒館

generate: 產生

（譯者：xinxin10 編輯：劉明）