New Elliott Bay Brewery Interview

As many of you have by now no doubt noticed, work has begun in earnest on Elliott Bay Brewery’s Lake City brew pub. As a follow-up to my interview in May (http://lakecitylive.net/2011/05/17/elliott-bay-brewery-starting-renovation-for-lake-city-brew-pub), Brent Norton agreed to show me around the worksite and share some of his enthusiasm. What follows are highlights from our conversation:

Brent, it seems like construction took a while to begin. Can you comment on that?

The City has been great, but the permitting process took longer than we had planned. In addition, we had to do some seismic retrofitting before construction really began. Right now, we’re about two months behind schedule but hope to open some time in January. However, that’s a moving target. We have the walls framed out, and are currently working on the front and back exteriors, the main entrance on the parking-lot side, and the electrical and plumbing.

I see some huge steel beams in the ceiling and it looks like the bar will be going in over there. Can you share any details about your plans?

Well, the main entrance will be from the parking lot. We’re going for an industrial northwest look, and we’ll be incorporating those I-beams that you mentioned. You can also see that once we tore up the floors, there is beautiful oak flooring that we’ll refinish once the rest of the construction is complete.

The main brewing area will be on the right as you enter from the parking lot so you’ll see it as you enter, and we’re hoping to add an enclosed beer garden some time after we open. There is a smaller, more intimate room that people can rent (or use), and the pub and restaurant area pretty much takes up the whole ground floor. The pub will really have a nice feel and be very comfortable.

The bar will be on the north wall, and it will be about forty feet long. We’re still haven’t decided how many beers we’ll have on tap but the discussions have been somewhere between 20 and 40. Most of the beers will be ours—both beers common to our other two pubs and ones unique to the Lake City location—but we’ll also have guest brews from other Washington state breweries, and a few different ciders on tap (cider is increasingly popular).

What are those huge tanks over there?

Those are 310-gallon serving tanks. While we keep some of our beer in kegs, we often keep it in serving tanks that go directly to the taps.

Is there anything you’d like to add, Brent?

We are very excited about opening Elliott Bay Brewery in Lake City.

When we first opened a brew pub in West Seattle, many people thought we were crazy. When that was successful and we looked for a location in the south end, some thought it strange that we chose Burien, but that was a great location for us AND for the community. We’re hoping that our commitment to community will also have an impact on Lake City. We’re branding this as a Lake City brew pub, not just as another Seattle brewery. We truly believe in Lake City and think that as the only brew pub in Lake City, the community will respond well to this addition to the neighborhood.

We hope that locals will see Elliott Bay Lake City as the place to go after work, for Sunday brunch, to get online and do their homework, or after soccer with the kids (because we will be a family friendly pub). We’re hoping we can be not just good neighbors but also a catalyst for more cool development in Lake City.