Fat Head’s Saloon turns 25
No longer just a South Side institution, Fat Head’s is a multi-state craft beer phenomenon.
A new $12 million production brewery and restaurant is being built in the Cleveland suburb of Middleburg Heights to replace, early next year, the brewery and tap room the company built in 2012 and quickly outgrew, in part thanks to a pile of national and international awards.
There’s a booming Fat Head’s brewpub in nearby North Olmsted, Ohio, that opened in the spring of 2009.
There’s a Fat Head’s brewpub in Portland, Ore., that opened in 2014, and similar brewpubs slated for Canton, Ohio, and Charlotte, N.C., within the next year or two.
Not all fans of this winning brand know that it all started in Pittsburgh in 1992 at the original Fat Head’s Saloon that a young couple opened at 1805 E. Carson St. This month, the couple, Glenn and Michelle Benigni, plan to celebrate their 25th anniversary there, in a space that they’ve newly renovated for whatever comes next.
This spring and summer, they widened the bar area and the bar itself, and updated the tap system and back bar. They also have installed a new tin ceiling, reconfigured the upstairs and adjacent patio, and redone the bathrooms, kitchen and menu.
Still, if you hadn’t been in in a decade or two, you’d immediately recognize it as Fat Head’s, from the colorful head logos to the “headwiches” -— sandwiches nearly as big as your head — and other enduring aspects of what owners and workers proudly call “Fat Head’s culture.”
Sitting at the new bar, reflecting on the story so far, Mr. Benigni chose his words carefully, as if he were talking about their kids (they’ve raised three). “This, in my mind, is my baby and my bread and butter.”
He was just 25, living with