New Ringgold restaurant eyes microbrewery; city is evaluating its alcohol ordinance
A new Ringgold restaurant could soon house the city’s first microbrewery, which would give the establishment the chance to brew its own in-house beers for customers to pair with their menu.
Friends Rashard Harris, Robert Sarti, and Stephen Williams are working toward opening their new restaurant, Wrath Brewing Company, at 61 RBC Drive in the Remco Business Center off Boynton Drive.
The trio approached the city council on April 10 regarding the ordinance, hoping that some sort of amendment could be made.
According to Shay Love, manager of RBC Properties, the men signed a three-year lease for the building and began renovations for the restaurant before realizing microbrewing wasn’t permitted in the city under the current ordinance.
“We didn’t find out until recently, and they’ve already done numerous upgrades to the building at this point,” Love said. “The owner, Alvin Mashburn, doesn’t mind them brewing in the building.”
Love says the city of Dalton recently amended its ordinance to accommodate a microbrewery.
“It’s a trend,” Love said. “All the major cities seem to have these microbreweries...there’s one in Rock Spring in Walker County, and now Dalton has one.”
Rashard Harris says the restaurant’s overall goal is to offer unique parings of food and alcohol in the establishment.
“We want to brew beer, but more than that to us, we want to brew beer to match our food,” Harris said. “It’ll help businesses around here. Chattanooga is brewing up. ... I’m not saying we need to have big distilleries here, but small ones I believe could have more businesses wanting to come down here and support the community.”
Councilwoman Sara Clark discussed a newly-approved state bill supporting microbreweries, but thinks the city should discuss the matter with the city attorney. The bill allows for certain amounts of beer to be brewed and served at establishments without having to go through a distributor.
“I’m all for what you guys are doing, but we’re going to have to know what’s actually the law,” Clark said.
Stephen Williams, Wrath’s brew master, says the restaurant plans to brew less than most places, and that they would easily fall in line with state laws.
“We’re much smaller than most. ... The systems we’re running with is only 22 gallons, which comes out to roughly one barrel at a time on two kegs,” Williams said. “We have an American traditional menu, and our goal is to brew beer to match and cook with, so it’s more of a pairing of the food and beverage being served. Most of our menu items have been cooked, soaked in, or marinated with beers we’ve brewed.”
Mayor Nick Millwood says he’s a fan of the effort, but that the ordinance will have to be evaluated.
“Personally, I’m excited about this type of business coming into the city,” Millwood said. “I think it’s a neat concept. We already serve alcohol, so I don’t see why we couldn’t have a microbrewery to serve that alcohol. At the same time, there’s a process we have to go through. We’ll have to go to city attorney and say to him, ‘we need a draft ordinance we can look at’. My general feel is that the council is open to this, but we need to speak with the city attorney before we can approve anything.”
The owners were hoping to have the restaurant open by the end of April, but going though the proper channels to amend the ordinance could push that into mid-May.
“We’ll gladly wait. ... Our biggest thing is making sure we can do this the right way,” Harris said.
In addition to the microbrewing issue, the city also wants to make minor adjustment to the ordinance regarding the serving of alcohol and serving hours during certain holidays.
On Monday, April 24, the council held the first reading of the amended ordinance, which does away with the requirement of a meal to be purchased when ordering an alcohol beverage at a restaurant.
The amendment also adds Patriot Hall to the list of city buildings where alcohol can be served as long as a “preferred caterer” from the city’s list is hired to serve the beverages, and grants an extension of serving hours for certain instances like New Year’s Eve, St. Patrick’s Day, and Cinco de Mayo.