Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
The Beaver has more to belch about
Vista brewery's Pub 980 revamp features restaurant as star
Dressed up with stainless steel siding and tires, the kitchen is intended to resemble an Airstream trailer.
Belching Beaver Brewery debuted its new Pub 980 concept in January, taking the unusual step of converting the tasting room of its original Vista brewery location into a casual eatery with a taproom bar.
A living wall accents Belching Beaver's Pub 980
Since opening in 2012, the Beaver has established offsite taproom locations in North Park (4223 30th Street) and Ocean Beach (4836 Newport Avenue), opened a brewpub in Vista Village, and built a new production brewery in Oceanside (1334 Rocky Point Drive). Since the Oceanside facility went online, the original south Vista brewhouse has continued to brew and serve beer, in part being used to develop a sour-beer program.
However, as more breweries cropped up in the immediate vicinity over the years, sales at the Vista Belching Beaver declined. No fewer than 20 other alcoholic beverage producers operate within a three-mile radius; that number has dropped in recent months as others have been forced to shut down.
"There's a lot of competition," acknowledges Beaver cofounder David Mobley. "We saw a lot of drop-off, so we wanted to reinvent, bring food in."
Like a number of Vista breweries, Belching Beaver used to schedule caterers to set up food-service stalls and sell food to tasting-room visitors. However, county regulations went into effect last year requiring tasting rooms to procure a host facility permit, which often requires costly infrastructure upgrades (grease-trap installation, for example) to obtain.
Between the new rule limiting food options and increased competition, Belching Beaver's owners saw an opportunity to stand out. They doubled the size of the brewery space, taking over the adjacent warehouse suite, and invested in building a kitchen. Rather than build a brewpub — a restaurant with a brewery inside — they did it the other way around.
"It's still a production facility," says Mobley. "We still have warehouse zones and space, but it's a restaurant within a brewery."
Mobley — also an architect — put together a redesign of the tasting-room interior with the help of Pub 980 general manager Karye Wallace, who's worked at this location almost since it opened five years ago.
"I've always wanted this place to be a happy, fun, family-friendly place," says Wallace. "And being in Southern California, what do people love to do all the time? They want to be outside."
So, she and Mobley designed an outside-indoors concept. Under the brewery's high ceiling, the kitchen has been made to resemble an Airstream trailer. Over the bar, fishing poles dangle fishing lures made with LED lights and Belching Beaver bottles and cans. To one side, plants grow along a living wall, fed by a live koi pond at its base. Dome canvas tents are used as decoration, and Mobley's ultimate goal is to hang a few as lighting fixtures, akin to Chinese paper lanterns. In the actual outdoors, fire pits populate a beer garden outside the brewery.
Along with providing fast-casual burgers, hot dogs, cheesesteaks, and wraps, the kitchen allows the bar to serve guest taps, including wine, mead, and cider, in addition to beer.
Mobley says he and cofounder Tom Vogel share an interest in wine. "Tom and I used to make wine together before we started brewing," he says. The idea of someday opening an urban winery is something they've discussed.
However, next up, Mobely says, is building a restaurant at Belching Beaver's Oceanside brewery.
Here's something you might be interested in.
The Beaver has more to belch about
Vista brewery's Pub 980 revamp features restaurant as star
The Beaver has more to belch about
Vista brewery's Pub 980 revamp features restaurant as star
Dressed up with stainless steel siding and tires, the kitchen is intended to resemble an Airstream trailer.
Belching Beaver Brewery debuted its new Pub 980 concept in January, taking the unusual step of converting the tasting room of its original Vista brewery location into a casual eatery with a taproom bar.
A living wall accents Belching Beaver's Pub 980
Since opening in 2012, the Beaver has established offsite taproom locations in North Park (4223 30th Street) and Ocean Beach (4836 Newport Avenue), opened a brewpub in Vista Village, and built a new production brewery in Oceanside (1334 Rocky Point Drive). Since the Oceanside facility went online, the original south Vista brewhouse has continued to brew and serve beer, in part being used to develop a sour-beer program.
However, as more breweries cropped up in the immediate vicinity over the years, sales at the Vista Belching Beaver declined. No fewer than 20 other alcoholic beverage producers operate within a three-mile radius; that number has dropped in recent months as others have been forced to shut down.
"There's a lot of competition," acknowledges Beaver cofounder David Mobley. "We saw a lot of drop-off, so we wanted to reinvent, bring food in."
Like a number of Vista breweries, Belching Beaver used to schedule caterers to set up food-service stalls and sell food to tasting-room visitors. However, county regulations went into effect last year requiring tasting rooms to procure a host facility permit, which often requires costly infrastructure upgrades (grease-trap installation, for example) to obtain.
Between the new rule limiting food options and increased competition, Belching Beaver's owners saw an opportunity to stand out. They doubled the size of the brewery space, taking over the adjacent warehouse suite, and invested in building a kitchen. Rather than build a brewpub — a restaurant with a brewery inside — they did it the other way around.
"It's still a production facility," says Mobley. "We still have warehouse zones and space, but it's a restaurant within a brewery."
Mobley — also an architect — put together a redesign of the tasting-room interior with the help of Pub 980 general manager Karye Wallace, who's worked at this location almost since it opened five years ago.
"I've always wanted this place to be a happy, fun, family-friendly place," says Wallace. "And being in Southern California, what do people love to do all the time? They want to be outside."
So, she and Mobley designed an outside-indoors concept. Under the brewery's high ceiling, the kitchen has been made to resemble an Airstream trailer. Over the bar, fishing poles dangle fishing lures made with LED lights and Belching Beaver bottles and cans. To one side, plants grow along a living wall, fed by a live koi pond at its base. Dome canvas tents are used as decoration, and Mobley's ultimate goal is to hang a few as lighting fixtures, akin to Chinese paper lanterns. In the actual outdoors, fire pits populate a beer garden outside the brewery.
Along with providing fast-casual burgers, hot dogs, cheesesteaks, and wraps, the kitchen allows the bar to serve guest taps, including wine, mead, and cider, in addition to beer.
Mobley says he and cofounder Tom Vogel share an interest in wine. "Tom and I used to make wine together before we started brewing," he says. The idea of someday opening an urban winery is something they've discussed.
However, next up, Mobely says, is building a restaurant at Belching Beaver's Oceanside brewery.
Comments