April Fools' Day was selected because it's a trickster day that's widely acknowledged yet socially under-celebrated. On average less than one prank per capita occurs although, it bears repeating, 89 million Americans participate each year. By recasting it as All Fools' Food Day in an equally empty space—your kitchen-less taproom—your establishment and customer base make for an ideal annual April 1st gathering place. The timing couldn't be better because of societal trends underway, the relative newness of taprooms like yours, and the next two April 1's fall on slower midweek days.

There are two ways to win and no way to lose.

Say, All Fools' Food Day is an immediate hit: you win more customers drinking—and eating—more often (plus the option of a contrasting future May Day Better Beer, Better Food event and other activities in 2021) and loads of digital credit. Or if it's moderately attended in this first year, then you also win. Your taproom will have a memorable story to encourage other patrons to bring or order in food on other weekdays, directly increasing your beer sales. There's also a third, longer-term, way to win for all taprooms by making the idea of stopping in for a beer—at an unfamiliar taproom—more visible and desirable with still no way to lose.

What experts recommend centers on what to eat, not what to eat sparingly or only on privileged food occasions like an All Fools' Food Day. This is why we're blazing a new trail where eaters will, at minimum, get an antic, festive glimpse into the deception that large food has so cleverly hidden in plain sight. Yes, hidden artfully inside a host of mixed dietary messages and confusing health counterclaims that make it difficult for eaters to know what to do; especially when feeding the children.

Taprooms are missing a unifying presence in the public mind.

In the same local area, taprooms are both competitors and allies. You compete for local beer drinkers while striving to make the taproom brewery model more commonplace in the minds of potential patrons everywhere and, of course, every day that you're open. The idiom, kill two birds with one stone, speaks to resolving two problems at the same time. The birds that All Fools' Food Day targets are your deeper-pocketed competitor, Big Beer companies and America's even larger large food corporations. Over time, this event will help taprooms compete for consumer mindshare locally (and longer-term potentially, nationally). It will also encourage more dietary-sensitive and travelling consumers to give your taproom a try. An equal stone's throw away, there is also a third bird perched, in cover, above the All Fools' Food Day trail. Ask about this mystery bird, currently well above the fray.

Rather optimistically, nothing is standing in the way of All Fools' Food Day events eventually matching St. Paddy's Day beer sales; except, again, brewpubs and beer-centric restaurants won't participate. Unless, of course, they cook up even more FoodZy than usual.

What's even more confusing is that almost every American over the age of twelve has a sense of which foods are nutritious, although we prefer to call them healthy foods. Of course, we love to indulge at every age and food indulgences are American on a grand scale. Most of the time, most of us eat what we have always eaten and that's usually whatever tastes best. All Fools' Food Day celebrates our failings...to the extreme, and while also showing that the food involved in our gluttony is slap-dab inside your shared-patron's blind spot. "What do you mean, I'm eating as daily fare what others see as the worst-of-the-worst foodstuff. Someone must be tricking me." Yes, far-reaching food corporations are taste tricksters extraordinary and equally important they're also superb story tellers and marketeers.

If you're wondering what's in it for me personally, let's talk. It bears repeating, at a casual glance, I look like a very serious hobbyist who is also a societal change designer and published author. More accurately, I am an expert in behavioral definitions that simplify large-scale social change, particularly open collaborative projects like All Fools' Food Day.

We've been running a series of interrelated projects for twelve years.

Our projects have been supported by universities like Emory as well as undertaken with other top notch, multi-disciplinary all-volunteer teams (that neither of us could afford to hire). My organization, Open4Definition, has served both pro bono clients and targeted specific social betterment initiatives like this effort and at no cost. My career capstone aims at countering taste trickstering large food corporate and the ill effect of their worst-of-the-worst foods by nudging them toward making food harm reduction their normal way of business life.

These trends act as trail markings for our design. They include carnivalesque escape, a shifting corporate governance outook, and the competing co-trends for lifestyle health and food indulgence. Dancing within the system and trends of society, power, politics, and the economy will naturally juice the odds for this behavior-crafting and brewing-change process. This is also why taprooms, in a test market like yours, form an initial step in a multi-year effort. It's past time to start taming the beast of taste trickstering food companies by dancing as many, together—like a metaphorical and whimsical trail guide—inside the more-relevant of America's social trends.

The timing couldn't be better.

The next two All Fools' Food Days April 1sts will fall off-peak, midweek—on a Wednesday and Thursday respectively—while Burger King to name just one fast food trickster runs its own separate April Fools' Day promotion. Plus St. Patrick's Day is always 15 days before this similarly bold beer day making its co-promotion along with All Fools' Food Day easier. Within this first week in April, National Beer Eve and Day also celebrate the ending of Prohibition on the eve of the 6th and the day of the 7th of April.

The use of humor, satire, and attitude by your patrons will trick the taste tricksters of large food corporations back while your patrons toast another pint with fellow indulgers and share their delight digitally. There's both contrast and parody in our catch phrase, Drink Responsibly, Eat Irresponsibly since that's an American norm. It's time to begin protecting eaters from themselves and All Fools' Food Day, with your help, is blazing a supply-side trail that will, equally important, be a profitable pathway for you. Yes, and food is practically everywhere one goes in America, so exceptions like All Fools' Food Day stand out in the mind like Chick-fil-A's Sunday store closings.

All Fools' Food Day won't replace April Fools' Day (sometimes called All Fools' Day) rather it complements this widely celebrated day when practical jokes prevail, and hoaxes as well as untruths are perpetuated. It's celebrated by 89 million Americans each year, yet it's also a rarity: a major American holiday with minimal association to food or drink along with a dearth of group norms or related social gatherings. That's the "empty space" filled by recasting it as All Fools' Food Day. Audacious? Yes. Satire intended and comical? Yes. Unprecedented? No. For example (and in a piggyback of Valentine's Day), Amazon and Target are promoting Galentine's Day on February 13th to sell stuff that celebrates and elevates plutonic relationships between women.

Or satire is unappealing. Or perhaps your staff's dietary pattern consists almost entirely of the very food that will be jokingly panned. All Fools' Food Day folds into America's taprooms like an experienced pathfinder's sense of direction, and if mega-food corporations balk, the free publicity will be priceless. If you're still hesitant why not recruit another taproom or two to participate in their own carnivalesque gatherings to jointly establish a local niche event. Yes, and feel free to call B. Ray Helton anytime.

First, everything in the overall design is an ACE: Actionable; Connected; and Extensible (designed with ease of change or customization by any taproom).

Second, your taproom won't be serving fewer patrons each April 1st nor will you need to rent a tent or anything else extra for that matter. There's simply little downside risk to this All Fools' Food Day carnivalesque event. Together, we'll nudge taste trickstering food corporations toward harm reduction in their worst foods while your taproom sells more beer, enlarges its standing with current patrons, and, over time, attracts more and more food-particular drinkers.

Third, imagine what happens as food companies become responsible for not just the safety and popularity of the food they produce or serve, but also take a more shared responsibility for the "potential" health harm caused by their foods. America's uniquely low-cost manufactured food has unfortunately thrown eaters onto a food frenzy trail blazing; causing the highest-in-the-world healthcare costs. It's not craft beer that's to blame. Food forms a broken trail for lifestyle disease—heart, diabetes, and much more. It's past time to counter this rising health toll or, as we're recommending, begin "playfully" poking large food corporations back like a protective trail guide with a wry sense of humor.

Finally, yes, and America's food system is ultra-complex and problematic. The assumptions, conditions on the ground, and misassumptions all play vital roles. If this is starting to sound wonky, it is, but just a bit. One person, Jay Winsten, for instance, inexpensively created the idea of a Designated Driver and the drinking world has been a better place ever since. I have written a non-fiction, published book that includes similar large-scale behavior changing case studies and stories. Just ask for a copy.