Good food, good friends
New Bremen businesses team up for inaugural Small Business Smokeout
NEW BREMEN — Gongoozlers Brewery, located at 629 W. Monroe St. in New Bremen, was the place to be on Saturday as local businesses partnered together and hosted the Small Business Smokeout.
The event featured food by the New Bremen Coffee Company and Holy Smokes and drinks were provided by the brewery.
The public was welcome and guests had reserved times inside the brewery in the weeks leading up to ensure they had a spot and had enough space to adequately social distance.
The meal included one pint or one flight of beer, a chicken sandwich featuring Holy Smokes’ barbecue chicken topped with beer cheese and lettuce on a pretzel bun with chips and a cookie.
“It’s just a way of bringing people
out and supporting local, small businesses,” said Leah Hartwig of Gongoozlers.
The idea for the lunch came about after the coffee shop and the brewery
had partnered together previously on a kegs and eggs event back in September.
“After that event, it was one of those things where we said we would have to do it again or something similar,” said Carla Topp, co-owner of the New Bremen Coffee Company. “It was kind of left at that and then after the holidays it was one of those things where one of us mentioned, ‘Hey, once we get through the holidays, in January or February when it’s cold and miserable outside — and it seems like people don’t like to come out — let’s do something.’ So we thought it would be a great opportunity to help get people out of their houses and give them something to do.
“It was a fun event where we were able to incorporate yet another small business into the event as well.”
Hartwig said that the brewery was a good place to hold such an event because the inside was already pretty spacious, adding that since the pandemic began, they only had
to move out a couple of tables for patrons to keep distant.
There were three time slots available — 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m. — with the 1 p.m. slot being the busiest, as customers stayed longer and socialized.
“It was nice for people to do something a little bit different in their day and everyone that came out seemed to stick around a little bit longer, hung out and had an extra drink or visited a little longer,” said Topp. “So it was really nice.”
Topp wanted to thank the community for coming out, and
supporting local businesses during hard times for many.
“Since COVID hit, the community has been so amazing and so supportive,” she said. “Just knowing that we have that community support and we can do fun events like this; it’s just awesome and such a great feeling because you want to host events to not only help your business, but you want to host events that kind of give people something to do and give people a sense of ‘We’re helping small businesses and we get to do something in our day.’
“It’s a bleak world right now with not much to do and, as a business owner, you feel like you’re giving back to the community
as well.”
“You get to know your community better and the money kind of stays around here,” said Hartwig. “Especially during these times, it makes it beneficial to everyone.”
Topp said they had a great turnout on Saturday and is excited to plan the next event.
“We saw a lot of familiar faces but we also saw a lot of new faces which was really nice to see,” she said. “It’s not just those same people coming out each time; seeing the new faces was really neat. It was a fun event for us. It was a great turnout and we’re hopefully looking forward to planning that next one down the road at some point.”