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This is the Beer Yard news page, with brewing news from the Philadelphia area and beyond.
- July 09, 2008 - "Bierista" Planned for South Philly
- John Longacre, the man who created the South Philadelphia Tap Room in September 2003 and, for that matter, the Newbold neighborhood it calls home (the several block area around 15th and Mifflin was given that distinct identity by Longacre to acknowledge a former street which ran through it and the limestone address blocks bearing that name set into several older buildings), says he will introduce a new concept into Philadelphia retail beer selling which, he hopes, will continue to expand his dream of making South Philly a destination spot for beer aficionados.
"We're creating Bierista, a high end coffee shop which will offer up to 800 world class beers for takeout," Longacre told The Beer Yard during a visit to SPTR on Tuesday. "It's at 1900 S. 15 Street, right down the block from here."
The new business will be open by summer's end, assuming everything goes right. "It took us over a year and a half to get the permits to expand this place," he said, waving an arm toward the new dining area behind the bar, "but we have all the permits for this one and construction is already underway. I don't know very much about coffee so we'll hire somebody knowledgeable to run that end of the business, with an emphasis on free trade and local to the degree we can pull that off. The beer side will essentially run as an extension of SPTR."
The arm wave this time centered on Joe Bedia, who last brewed at Yards Brewing Company at the old Kensington location which is now home to Philadelphia Brewing Company, left to learn the restaurant business as part of the waitstaff at Tria in center city, tried to set up his own brewpub, a deal which fell through, and has resurfaced as the "beer guy" at SPTR after a brief foreign adventure. He's been on the job for two weeks, he said, and still getting a feel for what he wants to do to expand and improve the existing beer offerings.
"This is a new concept and I'm not sure how it will work out," Longacre acknowledged, "but I think we are building an audience in this part of the city who can and will support lot. It's a whole new ballgame down here since we opened up, with a lot of new places opening. Instead of an oddity, SPTR is now the standard. We were the first one, but we're no longer the only one."
Longacre also said that SPTR has a new chef, Michael Zulli, "who has a real feel for what we want to do with the menu" and that he is always looking for other locations for similar ventures. He noted that SPTR's third annual wheat beer festival on April 28 was a huge success and the cornerstone "of our best week ever, second only to Philly Beer Week, which was the high mark before that because we were packed every night. There had to be more than 1,000 people here, the pub was filled, the street outside was filled and the crowd stretch down the block. It was absolutely fantastic."--JACK CURTIN
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