Backyard Brewery will lease a section of a new building owned by Tuckaway Tavern owner Bobby Marcotte on Crystal Avenue in Derry, where customers can buy retail beer and food or dine in, while both companies ramp up wholesale production.
The owners of Tuckaway Tavern and Backyard Brewery have joined forces to build a new 25,000-square-foot building to be located between McDonald’s and T-Bones on Crystal Ave. in Derry.
Backyard Brewery will lease a section of a new building owned by Tuckaway Tavern owner Bobby Marcotte on Crystal Avenue in Derry, where customers can buy retail beer and food or dine in, while both companies ramp up wholesale production.
The owners of Tuckaway Tavern and Backyard Brewery have joined forces to build a 25,000-square-foot building between McDonald’s and T-Bones on Crystal Avenue in Derry.
The new place will be branded Grindhouse Meat Co. and Backyard Brewery and Tasting Room with a shared dining hall.
The Derry Planning Board unanimously approved the project Wednesday.
Grindhouse Meat Co. will serve as a central meat processing facility for Tuckaway, sister restaurants and a wholesaler for other restaurants that don’t have the time or labor to process their own meats, according to Bobby Marcotte, the owner of Tuckaway Tavern in Raymond, Rise + Grind in Durham and Hop + Grind in Durham and Peabody, Mass.
“Labor the way it is, it makes no sense to fully staff chefs in all three locations when really we could be facilitating them all in one while using them for other things as well,” Marcotte said.
He said they had experimented with processing wholesale meat for other restaurants at a smaller scale until they learned they weren’t at the scale required or meeting certain regulatory requirements of the United States Department of Agriculture.
The owners of Tuckaway Tavern and Backyard Brewery have joined forces to build a new 25,000-square-foot building to be located between McDonald’s and T-Bones on Crystal Ave. in Derry.
Provided by the Derry Planning Department
The new building will be a USDA-certified facility with a USDA inspector on site.
To start with, the facility will provide all the ground beef required to make the burgers served at the Hop + Grind locations. Meanwhile, customers will be able to shop the butchery for retail goods, and order some of the menu items available at Hop + Grind, plus a fast casual version of certain Tuckaway offerings.
The Backyard Brewery and Tasting Room will similarly provide space to scale up beer production for the Manchester brewpub, while branching out into the retail and restaurant markets, according to head brewer Paul St. Onge, who is a partner on the Derry project.
“We’re not looking to make an aggressive, high-volume push, especially right out the gate,” St. Onge said.
The brewpub produces about 1,100 barrels of beer per year but, between March and November, they are selling more beer per week than they’re making. To make up the difference, they’ve occasionally turned to contract brewers to close the gap or stockpiling long-shelf-life beers over the winter.
The new facility will help meet their restaurant demands and include a canning line for retailing packaged beers in the restaurant and other stores. They’ll also be able to put more kegs in other restaurants. The plan is to double the current brewing capacity and gradually grow from there, St. Onge said.
“We are committed to investing well over $1 million just in our second location,” he said.
Marcotte said the building will be owned by his company at first, and Backyard will lease a roughly 10,000-square-foot space, with an option to own later on.
Customers will be able to get food from Grindhouse, a beer from Backyard and grab a table in what Marcotte describes as a “micro food hall.”
“Then there’ll be a community space, in between ourselves and Backyard Brewery, who’s building their own production facility,” Marcotte said.
St. Onge said he would still like to make most of the beer served at the restaurant on-site, but the new capacity will also free up some bandwidth for experimenting on more labor-intensive beers.
“We’d like to put out a real true lager and a mixed fermentation sour program in, which with a brewpub and everything else that’s going on, is a challenge,” St. Onge said.
Backyard Brewery owners had previously submitted plans for a new location to be developed in Bedford but since withdrew those plans. Marcotte, who consulted on Backyard’s food menu, said he had wanted to team up with them on his Derry project and casually invited them to consider it in case their other plans fell through.
“We know that we can work really well together,” Marcotte said.
Marcotte has owned the Derry property for about three years, he said. The 30-year resident said he has long wanted to open a location in Derry.
“I’m excited to bring something to the community that’s been really good to me,” Marcotte said.
Marcotte said the project is going out for bid in the next couple of weeks, and he hopes to finish construction and open next summer or fall, the latest.
The first Hop + Grind opened four years ago in Durham, with a second location in Peabody two years ago. The coffee bar concept Rise + Grind opened on the other end of the same university dorm building in Durham in February this year. Tuckaway Tavern turned 9 years old in June.
