A toast to the Sherwood Liquor Store

By Diana Page Jordan, The Sherwood Sun

SHERWOOD, Ore. — The Sherwood Liquor Store moved next door to its new location at Sherwood Plaza on July 13^th, more than doubling its space. Not only that, Owner John Schiebel, said, “We never did close, except for 45 minutes on that day when we had to get the registers up and running.”

“That was the beauty of maintaining our space next door,” Schiebel said, while standing in the new liquor store. “As we were getting this space ready, we were operating over there.” 

At 1,900 square feet, the older store was too small for Schiebel to add beer and wine. He wanted to grow. Now, inside the new 4,700 square foot store, he sells beer and wine, as well as unique items like a 25-year-old bottle of Macallan Scotch, which sold for more than $2,000. He also continues his 20-year-plus habit of giving children candy. 

“I laugh because when we first started doing that, giving candy to these seven-, eight-year-old kids who came in with their parents, now those seven- or eight-year-old kids are old enough to buy stuff in here,” Schiebel said.

The ceiling is nearly eight feet taller in the new version than it was in the older store, making the new store feel more spacious and bright inside. 

“I really like the open concept with the ceilings and everything. It gives it a bigger feel than over there with its drop ceiling,” he said.

The Sherwood Liquor Store is actually on its third location. Schiebel originally worked in corporate retail, at Payless which became Rite Aid, before moving on to Staples.

 “One of the guys I worked with at Payless got into the liquor industry down in Salem,” Schiebel said. “He came into one of my Staple stores and said, ‘Hey, you should look into this.’ So, I started looking into it.” 

He chose the Sherwood Liquor Store when it was located along Pacific Highway near where the new Anderson’s Tavern is, and later moved his liquor store to Sherwood Plaza.

When he began the search for a bigger space than his second location, he ran into roadblocks, until finally his current landlord discovered he was looking around. 

“There was a sushi restaurant down here, open space in the middle and then us, and we needed more space than just the middle,” Schiebel said. “The landlord got the sushi guy to move over to his other property, and that allowed us to take the two spaces over here to make our new sales floor.Now, the old sales floor is our back room.”

There were a few other hurdles, according to Schiebel. 

“We're lucky enough to get it through the OLCC [Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission] selection process,” Schiebel said. “My time in retail helped a lot in getting the place.”

Even so, Schiebel had to get permits, arrange for design work to be done, and satisfy the city requirements to get the new building approved.

Schiebel said he has owned the liquor store for nearly 25 years, building its annual revenue from about $500,000 a year to nearly $4 million a year. Sherwood Liquor Store does have competition in the area, and he says that was part of the motivation for enlarging the store. 

“You have Tualatin, not terribly far away. That's a very large store. Newberg expanded their store. You’ve got North Wilsonville, who's got the biggest square footage store in the state,” Schiebel said. “If you didn't do something, you're going to have your customers going somewhere else.”

What’s next for Schiebel? 

“We’ll just build it up and, hopefully we're at work until my retirement age, about five or six years from now,” Schibel said.