The Tower District is losing a bar/entertainment venue as COVID-19 squeezes Fresno business
Full Circle Olympic, the craft beer tap room and entertainment venue in the Tower District, is closing its doors for good.
This is the place at 1426 N. Van Ness Ave. that was once Club Fred and Audie’s Olympic Tavern.
Local brewery Full Circle took it over about a year and a half ago, serving its beer at the bar and hosting concerts and other events.
The original Full Circle Brewing Co. at 620 F St. where the beer is brewed remains in business. It’s only doing sales of beer through pickup and delivery right now because of the shelter-in-place order, which took effect in March because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Full Circle Olympic posted about the closure on its Facebook page Monday.
It said, in part: “Like many small businesses, we have struggled with a significant loss of revenue during this unprecedented time. In the age of social distancing, anticipated future crowd limitations and no immediate guidance on re-opening of Fresno’s restaurant or breweries we have made the difficult decision to close our Tower location.”
Full Circle was paying rent, utilities and other expenses on two buildings, said CEO Arthur Moye.
“Bearing all those costs with no end in sight prompted the really in-depth analysis of what we should do,” he said. “We love the spirit of the Tower community and the welcoming that we had there. … It really does suck to be missing that piece of the tight-knit community.”
Though some retailers are expected to begin reopening in California as early as Friday with curbside pickup, restaurants, bars and breweries are still waiting on guidance about when they can begin reopening. The city’s shelter-in-place order has been extended until May 31.
Even when they do reopen, it will be with limited capacity and fewer customers at a time. Events involving large crowds like concerts will be among the last to resume, Gov. Gavin Newsom has said.
“We’re looking at really braving this thing – if we had kept the Oly – another 6 to 8 months of low profitability,” Moye said.
Full Circle is hoping to not lay off any employees and has already shifted its security guard, event booker and sound guys to the beer pickup and delivery service.
The service has proved surprisingly popular, drawing in people from other parts of town who have never been to the downtown brewery before, he said.
Customers order online at FullCircle2go.com and choose pickup in Fresno, or delivery in Fresno and Visalia. Its line of milkshake IPAs, beers like its Illa Vanilla, are selling well.
“We’ll deliver to your home,” Moye said. “That’s the primary way to support us and other craft brewers in town.”
This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 12:41 PM.
