photo by: Elvyn Jones

Cory and Jenni Venable are starting renovations on the old grocery store they purchased recently from Stan Vickers. They plan to open a microbrewery and restaurant next spring in the building.

Cory Venable says circumstances forced him to go big or stay home when it came to a Baldwin City microbrewery that he and his wife, Jenni, look to open next year.

The Venables are starting renovations to transform the old Antiques on the Prairie building on the northeast corner of Sixth and High streets into a microbrewery and restaurant. The 7,800-squre-foot building was the town grocery store before it became Stan Vickers’ antique consignment store for the last two decades.

It wasn’t his first site choice, Cory Venable said. His head was filled with plans to convert the old city-owned brick building at Sixth and Indiana streets into a microbrewery. But that dream was dashed when Ryan Niehoff bought the building at auction in June for $90,000.

With no alternatives in a filled-up downtown Baldwin City, Venable turned his attention to the old grocery store when he learned that Vickers was interested in selling the building. With the purchase, the plans for the Baldwin City Beer Co. have grown to match the available space. The planned microbrewery was always going to be paired with a barbecue restaurant, but now Venable plans to have an event space on the west side of the building that can be rented for special occasions and used for live music.

The expanded plans will fill a void in the community, Venable said.

“We had a great crowd downtown Saturday (Aug. 14) with the band playing, but when it closed down at 10 p.m. people had nowhere to go,” he said. “We will be that place. I really think if we build it, they will come. Baldwin will support this.”

His confidence is boosted by his memory of the packed houses that the closed barbecue restaurant in the 700 block of High Street used to enjoy a decade ago when it regularly featured live music, Venable said. That was driven by Baker University, a customer base that Venable is confident will make the Baldwin City Beer Co. a success.

The old grocery store already has a commercial kitchen, Venable said, and the microbrewery equipment will be located along the central part of the building’s north wall. Venable also plans to install two garage doors to the west to create an indoor-outdoor environment.

All the renovation work and securing the needed state license for the microbrewery will take some time, and Venable says he won’t open until 2022.

“We’re hoping for February, but it might be March,” he said. “I don’t want it to stretch out to April.”

Venable plans, however, to make use of the old store’s front parking lot to open a more limited business this fall. The plan is to install a large tent in the lot and offer beer and food, he said.

“It will be commercial beer, not brewed beer,” he said. “We’re still working on the food.”

Venable said he became interested in brewing beer as an activity to keep him busy when the COVID-19 lockdown started in the spring of 2020.

I was literally spending every weekend at home brewing,” he said. “I would bottle every other Sunday and brew the rest of the time.”

After a few initial disappointing results, his skills improved, and he started getting positive feedback from friends, Venable said. Lessons learned through those home efforts have led to a list of options he will offer at the Baldwin City Beer Co.

“We’ll have five different beers,” he said. “We’ll have a pale ale, wheat, an IPA, an amber ale, and we’ll always have a seasonal brew.”

Beer lovers will have to visit the bar to enjoy the beer, because Venable said he had no plans to bottle his product at this time.

Venable said he didn’t know if he would be doing the brewing himself when his new venture opens.

“I may hire a brewmaster,” he said. “The important thing is that it’s done right when we open.”