Firestone Walker Brewing Co. to Open Brewpub in Venice

As mentioned in the forums, the Firestone Walker Brewing Co. plans to open a new restaurant and microbrewery at the old Sizzler / World Gym locations at 3205 and 3223 Washington (near Lincoln) next year. The LA Business Journal has some more info on it in today’s issue.

From the LA Business Journal:

Yes, the Venice site just purchased by Paso Robles brewery Firestone Walker Brewing Co. will eventually become a restaurant serving beer brewed on site.

But brewery co-founder Adam Firestone said a Firestone Walker location near the intersection of Washington and Lincoln boulevards will be less about selling burgers and suds than about market research. Its first venture outside of the sparsely populated Central Coast, the brewery aims to build a kind of satellite campus that will serve as an outpost in the heart of its biggest market.

“Paso Robles, it’s a long way from people. Our fans are down south,” said Firestone, whose great-grandfather founded Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. “We want to project ourselves into our market.”

To that end, Firestone Walker plans to use the new site not only to serve its existing line of beers, but to make some new brews and test them on customers. The site will house some of the company’s marketing staff, too.

The brewery sells the vast majority of its beer in Southern California, and about 25 percent of it in Los Angeles, Firestone said. By having a physical presence here, he hopes to get insight into what its customers want, and get it better and faster than he can in the brewery’s home town.

Firestone said customers in Venice will likely have higher expectations for the brewery’s restaurant than customers in Buellton and Paso Robles.

“We’re going into the foodie capital of the world,” he said. “Expectations are just enormous. We will have to take our game up a couple notches or the locals will show up with torches and pitchforks.”

Click here to continue reading the rest of the article (there is a lot more!) at the LA Business Journal!

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