What’s next in Fresno’s Brewery District? More beer, restaurants, pot shops may be coming
Downtown Fresno’s Brewery District is on the cusp of some big changes.
A taco shop and a craft beer/spirits taproom are getting closer to opening. And several new buildings are up for rent, with plenty of businesses eyeing them.
The former Zack’s Brewing Co. and the former Pep Boys are available to rent, along with the large empty space next to Modernist cocktail bar on Fulton Street and a few other places.
What will fill them?
Everything from new breweries, restaurants and a wine bar and cannabis shops are on the table.
With vaccines on the way and an eventual return to normal in sight, looking toward the future with hope is a refreshing change for business owners in the Brewery District.
The last year has been brutal as craft breweries lost the use of their indoor bars and couldn’t hold events that once brought in crowds of people.
Businesses that were planning to come to the area also had their plans sidelined by the coronavirus.
But the next phase of the Brewery District is about to start. The heart of the district along Fulton Street and nearby Broadway Street could soon look a lot different.
Remember that “soon” is a relative term. Even if a business signed a lease today, it could take six months to a year – or more – before it opened its doors to the public given all the permitting and construction that needs to be done inside the buildings.
For rent
The nearly 100-year-old building at 701 Fulton St., next door to Modernist, is up for rent.
The 22,500-square-foot building is divided into a front and back sections, and even has a three-bedroom apartment on the second floor that could be turned into offices.
It used to be Anchor Stage Depot, at a time when “stages” were large cars. The front was a waiting area similar to a bus depot, and people boarded the vehicles in the back of the building. The building still has its original floors, skylights and other details that have been preserved.
Nora Monaco owns the building, along with the property that Tioga-Sequoia Brewing Co. is on, the former Pep Boys building and other properties in the district.
She’d love to see a restaurant in the space, but is open to other possibilities, like entertainment.
“What the Brewery District needs is food,” she said. “They need fine dining. They need street eats to go along with the taprooms.”
She keeps hearing about people who go out to dinner on the north side of town, but drive to Modernist to get drinks after. She’d love for them to spend their entire evening in the Brewery District.
It could house one large restaurant with a kitchen in the back, or multiple businesses.
Anyone interested in renting the space can call 866-343-1754.
Zack’s and Full Circle
When the owners of Zack’s Brewing announced it was closing earlier in February, it was sad day in the craft beer community. Steven and Gail Zack were trailblazers in the Brewery District, transforming a big empty space into a brewery and live entertainment venue with a large outdoor patio.
The space at 712 Fulton St. didn’t stay empty for long. A new renter has already signed a lease.
Full Circle Brewing Co. will take over the space, with plans to use it as a taproom and entertainment venue.
The brewery will keep its original building at 620 F St.
Since the pandemic started, the F Street location ramped up production and began selling its beer at stores like Save Mart and Total Wine as a way to survive.
That meant adding more tanks, a bottling line and a canning line.
Now there’s no more room there for public events, said CEO Arthur Moye.
The stage has been removed and the speakers stored, so they couldn’t host events there if they wanted to.
“Our desire is to have that (Zack’s) space so we could do some of the outdoor food truck dining that we’re allowed to do at the moment and eventually … start an entertainment piece again,” he said.
Opening and serving beer might be a few months away, Moye said. But don’t be surprised if they do something creative soon without alcohol, like some “COVID (safe), socially distant type of stuff to say, ‘Hey, we’re here,’” he said.
He also said to expect more than food trucks when it comes to eating dinner or other meals there. They plan to collaborate with other food businesses and possibly add a kitchen inside.
Full Circle has had its fair share of struggles during the pandemic.
In May, it closed Full Circle Olympic, its craft beer taproom and entertainment venue in the former Club Fred and Audie’s Olympic Tavern.
Pep Boys
The Pep Boys at 716 Broadway Street closed last year. Monaco bought the property, which includes a strip of land between Tioga-Sequoia and the Brewery District mural that can be fenced in and used for special events.
The almost 17,000-square-foot building is available to lease.
“I think what the Brewery District really needs is another anchor location and this is big enough to be that,” she said, noting there’s plenty of room for a stage.
The building is divided into two sections: The store and the service bays. It could be rented to one big tenant or subdivided into smaller spaces.
Broadway location
Monaco owns yet another building for rent at the northeast corner of Broadway and Ventura streets, a few doors down from Yoshi NOW! There’s already a small Brewery District mural on the side.
Monaco, by the way, jokes that she got into the property owning business by accident. Her career is in running a company called AngelStar, which designs angel worry stones and other angel-themed merchandise.
She lives in Morgan Hill, but a brother in the area helped get her into the landlord business.
The Broadway building, a former automotive business, is also up for rent, and has three 1,600-square-foot sections and patio space out back with a sloping Quonset hut-style covering.
Pot shops?
Back in the heart of the Brewery District, developer Reza Assemi is rehabbing the former Sun Stereo warehouse. The building is more than 100 years old, at 736 Fulton Street, across the street from Tioga-Sequoia.
New windows are going in and Sheetrock is going up on the walls.
The second floor will be office space and there’s a basement space that could end up being a speakeasy.
An application to turn a chunk of the first floor into a retail cannabis operation has been filed with the city. City records show Cresco Cannabis, which has locations up and down the Valley, wants to open there.
Another application for a marijuana shop has been filed for 748 Fulton St., just north of Assemi’s building.
A block to the west, yet another application has been filed at 721 Broadway St., across the street from Pep Boys and just south of Chukchansi Park.
But all three aren’t going to be approved. Only two applications per city council district will be granted. More than 20 applications were submitted for district 3, which includes downtown, west Fresno, and part of the Tower District.
Tacos and a taproom
COVID-19 may have slowed them down, but work is happening on two businesses just north of Modernist.
Combination craft beer taproom and distillery 411: The Rec Room is hoping to open in about two months, or after coronavirus restrictions allow them to open.
The brewery and distillery is already producing at its Broadway Street location.
Work is also happening on Dab Tacos, a taco truck that will open a small restaurant, with hopes of opening later this year.
Bars coming?
Another business in the works is a bar, Moses McQueen’s, that won second place in the Downtown Fresno Partnership’s Create Here competition in 2019.
The 102-year-old white house with a Richard’s Prime Rib mural out front is at 634 Van Ness Ave. It’s owned by four buddies who want to turn it into a bar with a deck in the big back yard.
It’s still in the design stage, but they hope to start the permitting stage in the next few months.
The name is a nod to two men prominent in Fresno’s history in the 1800s: Moses J. Church, considered the father of Fresno irrigation, and Anthony “McQueen” Easterby, on whose land a railroad station was built that would eventually become the city of Fresno.
Another Create Here winner, Fig & Honey Lavish Grazing, is also looking for a location in the area.
According to the Downtown Partnership, the business that creates elaborate charcuterie boards wants to move its operations to the area and open a market and wine bar.
More changes: Silos, lights, alleys
Tioga-Sequoia is the preliminary stages of what could end up being four 20- to 25-foot grain silos on the back of its production facility on Broadway, on the strip of land next to Pep Boys.
Actually used to store grain that goes into making beer, they’d also be a beer-themed visual addition to the Brewery District.
The brewery wants to add more shade too – in the form of a structure and shade cloth – at the front of its beer garden, said Mike Cruz, the brewery’s president.
Also, the Brewery District mural next door to Tioga Sequioa? It’s black and white for a reason. Colored lights are being installed now that will illuminate it in different shades.
And there’s early talk of blocking off alleys in the district to use for events, said Jimmy Cerracchio, the partnership’s president and CEO.
“There are some leads and some exciting things in happening, it’s just a matter of when we’re able to get back in full swing,” he said.
This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 11:00 AM.
