"Brewery In Planning" is the designation the Brewer's Association gives you when you pay for a membership and don't have an existing packaging brewery or brewpub. And a "Brewery in Planning" is how we've been classified by that wonderful organization for roughly 3 years, since I first joined, when "Uptown Brothers Brewing Co" was just a bored lawyer's daydream.
All that has been changing for awhile now, and it's fixing to change a lot more in the near future.
You see, my wife and I and a few friends have stepped off into the abyss and are in the process of making this bored lawyer's daydream a reality. Back in April we closed on the purchase of a restaurant formerly (in three different incarnations) known as "The Red Room", at 320 East Colfax Avenue, in the shadow of the State Capitol. What we bought was basically a few tables and chairs and some kitchen equipment (though the vast majority of the fixtures and equipment on site when we started belong to the landlord, as the result of the checkered history of the joint through the last three owners), and a transferable "Hotel and Restaurant" liquor license.
Which leads to an explanation, as simple as I can make it, of why something called "Uptown Brothers Brewing Co" isn't selling, and currently can't sell, its own brewed-on-the-premises beer, and why I don't think (contrary to the belief of some yelp reviewers who didn't get the benefit of the explanation, and a few of the customers to whom I have given it, apparently poorly) it is "misleading" to call the place Uptown Brothers Brewing Co.
When we found the place listed for sale, it had been listed for awhile, and the asking price had been cut in half. Without revealing any trade secrets, let's just say the price wasn't very high. If it had been free, it wouldn't have been much less expensive than it was, but as always there's a reason for that, and the reason was that the rent was (and is), shall we say, optimistic for the neighborhood. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on where one sits in this transaction) the folks paying the rent were and are solid citizens, with more than sufficient means and assets to pay the rent on an empty building for the three years remaining on the lease. This dis-incentivized (to get all ECON 101, here) the landlord from offering any rent reduction; why should he, given that he knows he can collect.
So a rent abatement during the anticipated 6 month period for application for, and granting of, a new Federal and State brewpub license...wasn't going to happen. And while the sellers were motivated, and did ultimately (out of their own pocket) provide us with a couple months of free rent and a substantial ongoing rent subsidy (they're paying more in rent subsidy, over the next three years, than we paid them for the place, by a substantial margin), nevertheless we had to have the place generating some income, and right away.
The ONLY way to do this was to transfer the existing license ("Hotel and Restaurant") over to us. Unlike a NEW application for a brewpub license, there is a mechanism whereby during the pendency of a Transfer Application, the transferee (that's us) can operate the place under a Temporary License, good for 120 days, or until the Permanent License is granted. Then with the permanent "Hotel and Restaurant" license in hand, we could then file for a Brewpub license, and continue to operate under the "Hotel and Restaurant" license while we waited for a yes or no answer on the brewpub application.
Thus--continuous revenue stream.
We set the closing date for April 16 and made the issuance of the Temporary License a condition of the closing, and damned if we didn't get it done. We actually entered and started on the painting portion of the remodel (The Red Room is now affectionately known to those of us who painted it as the "Not-Quite-As-Red-As-It-Used-To Be Room") a few weeks before the closing. But there was a lot more to be done to what we thought was a "turn-key" room than we thought. (To any babes in the woods out there, considering embarking on your restaurant dream: If you retain nothing else from this blog entry, retain this: there is no such thing as a "turn-key restaurant." No such thing.)
Our Temporary License was good until August 13, but we thought that surely it would issue within 60 days, by mid-June; that had been my experience as a liquor licensing attorney in the past. Then I'd just file the brewpub app, probably get it OK'ed within another 90 days, while simultaneously navigating the Federal waters. (There's a little "Catch-22" thing here we'll talk about later--each governing body requires you to have the other's approval before they'll grant you THEIR approval--but it is, to continue the metaphor, navigable.)
What I didn't count on was the avalanche of paper that was burying both the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses (oh yeah, it's not just the state and the feds--state liquor licenses are handed out by the state, but in conjunction with and upon the review and approval by, the local licensing authority, in my case the City and County of Denver.) and the state's Department of Revenue, from the brand new medical marijuana industry which was also under each agency's respective jurisdiction.
This is where most people complain about government inefficiency and bureaucracy, but you won't hear any of that from me. What I mostly was, was amazed--amazed that a staff depleted by budgetary limitations in the current economic climate could cheerfully (for the most part) do the work they had been doing Before Medical Marijuana (not just liquor licenses, but taxicabs and beauty parlors and hot dog carts and pinball machines and all the gazillion other things that have always required city licenses), in the zoo-like atmosphere that prevailed as thousands of people filed for MMJ clinic licenses.
So I didn't actually get my permanent Hotel and Restaurant License until the first week of August. And the crush of other business responsibilities has kept me from filling out the necessary forms to start the brewpub application process, but that's all over now. The Time Has Come, you might say. We'll be filing this week, and I'll post our progress in this blog. And once we're up and brewing, this will be the "brewer's blog" that keeps anybody interested (we hope it will be a few folks, anyway) up to date as to what we're brewing, what's on tap, and when new brews are coming on line.
Let's see, I guess I still haven't explained why I don't think it's misleading to operate under the name "Uptown Brothers Brewing Co" while we're only selling other folks' beer so far. I guess it's a matter of a) intent and b) reasonable expectations. If I didn't think I was going to be doing it, and (relatively) soon, I would have done what the Mountain Sun/Southern Sun folks did a mile or so further east. They opened their place as "Vine Street Pub", not "Something Sun Brewpub". But I think they knew that they were going to have a long haul, changing zoning or getting a variance to do something in their space that wasn't a "Use By Right." I already have a zoning OK for my spot--I don't have to get the city council to amend the zoning ordinance, or go through the laborious and by-no-means-certain process of trying to get a variance. I do have to have a public hearing on whether the needs of the neighborhood and the reasonable desires of the inhabitants requires the issuance of the brewpub license, but this is not the same sort of hurdle, more of a popularity contest which we hope to win by being good neighbors and running a clean shop under our existing license. (And there is no other brewpub license within what I imagine, with some experience, will be the "designated neighborhood."). So I think it can be reasonably anticipated that I will be licensed to brew my own beer, if I pursue it.
So the question is, will I pursue it? And the answer is, brewing my own beer is the ONLY reason I am in the restaurant business. I had ZERO desire to run a restaurant, outside of that restaurant providing me the only realistic opportunity available to me, a 56 year old homebrewing attorney with no commercial brewing experience, to brew my beer on a commercial basis.
So that said, it seemed dumb to call the place something else (Uptown Brothers Craft Brew Neighborhood Sports Bar?) and then replace all the signage and trade name paraphernalia, when the license is granted and we start brewing.
(By the way, changing out The Red Room signage was a) expensive and b) fraught with its own regulatory drama and delay that, neophytes that we were, we did not imagine. And I once represented the largest neon sign manufacturer in the Rocky Mountain west. Let's just say we spent the first SEVEN WEEKS we were open, with a vinyl "OPEN" banner draped over The Red Room's neon signage." Now there's marketing know-how you just can't buy.)
So we thought, and we still think, that once we are brewing our own beer this whole issue will evaporate, and until we are, we can just explain it to all who ask. It is our most frequently asked question though, and we can hardly wait until somebody says, "So what beers of your own are on tap?" and the answer is, "Those six tap handles over there, see, they're right here on the beer menu!"
