Sea Dog Cantina: Redefining the customer experience with Walmart GoLocal through Cognetry Labs

Fred Forsley is the founder and owner of Shipyard Brewing Company and Sea Dog Brewing Co. In addition to the breweries, he and his partner now have 16 locations across Maine, New Hampshire and Florida, including the Sea Dog Cantina in Clearwater, Florida. The restaurant and tequila bar is a local hangout that offers tasty, Mexican-themed menu items like pollo chicharrónes, Azteca mac and cheese and chocolate Nutella-filled churros.

We introduced Walmart GoLocal in August 2021 with the goal of helping businesses of all sizes – including small businesses like Sea Dog Cantina – deliver products to their customers’ doorsteps locally. Our presence in communities across the country and deep experience with delivery means we offer peace of mind to business owners, so they can focus on their customers while we handle the delivery. Through our collaboration with Cognetry Labs, we helped Sea Dog Cantina navigate the pandemic and paved the way for a future expansion.

When the pandemic hit, Sea Dog Cantina – like many small businesses – had to adjust from being a gathering place for the community to serving their customers through local delivery. However, local delivery has historically been costly for small business owners, in part because it can involve small deliveries over a wide area. Despite pivoting quickly to offering delivery, Fred and his team quickly found themselves spread too thin, trying to deliver too many items across a large geographic area. That’s when he partnered with Walmart GoLocal through Cognetry Labs, an e-commerce platform designed with grocers and restaurants in mind.

Walmart GoLocal worked with Cognetry Labs to enable Sea Dog Cantina to leverage Walmart’s world-class operations and extensive network to expand their delivery capabilities and bring popular products like their on-tap margaritas directly to consumers efficiently and at a low cost. Additionally, Cognetry Labs’ e-commerce platform and Walmart GoLocal’s delivery expertise allows small businesses to own the direct relationship with their customers and avoid any disruptions that come from working through a third party. This is an important advantage, with 40% of consumers preferring to use a restaurant’s own branded website or app when placing orders.

“Walmart GoLocal has the ability to react quickly, and time is critical on deliveries. Especially when you’re dealing with food. Walmart GoLocal being everywhere in the areas where we’re doing business gives us a competitive advantage over normal delivery systems,” said Forsley.

Based on his success with Walmart GoLocal, Cognetry Labs and Fred are now creating a concierge-style app that will let people order items from multiple places. For example, someone might order their food from Sea Dog Cantina, beers from another brew pub and spirits from their local liquor store. With Walmart GoLocal, Forsley is able to focus on building his business while trusting us to handle the deliveries.

Forsley said, “Being able to do business with Walmart GoLocal, in my opinion, is cutting edge because of the technology of Cognetry Labs and the world-class reputation of Walmart. We feel our brands will be well respected and treated well.”

We are proud of our collaboration with Fred and Sea Dog Cantina through Cognetry Labs and are excited to continue partnering with them as they expand how they serve their communities. As we look ahead, Walmart GoLocal will continue to focus on helping small businesses reach their customers through a simplified and affordable delivery experience.

For more information on Walmart GoLocal, visit www.walmartgolocal.com. For more information on Cognetry Labs, visit www.CognetryLabs.ai.