Armistice Brewing Company’s proposed expansion of its Richmond brewery, taproom and beer garden was unanimously approved Thursday by the Richmond Planning Commission.
The popular brewery, owned and operated by siblings Alex and Gregory Zobel, is expanding into three units next to its current space at 845 Marina Bay Parkway, with city documents stating 6,900 additional square feet of space.
“With these units we will be tripling the first floor of our taproom, adding a second, equally sized beer garden in the front, two more restrooms, and a lot more fermentation space so that we can keep kicking out the haze bombs!” the brewery announced after the commission hearing. “While this approval is a huge step in the right direction, we still have permitting and construction so expect this expansion to be complete this summer!”
The Planning Commission also cleared the way for the brewery to have amplified music as long as the city’s noise regulations are followed. The Zobels say they’d like to tap into the musical talents of the community on occasion.
Before the commission’s vote, Alex Zobel gave us more details about Armistice’s promising evolution.
She says the brewery has been in a “must-expand scenario” since opening day in August 2017. After the first full day in business, another tank was ordered and very quickly, production space was maxed out.
“Demand has far outstripped our ability to keep up on our tiny brewhouse and fermentation cellar,” Alex said. “We’ve considered everything from a massive production facility out in Concord to a high-traffic retail location in San Francisco (and everything in between).”
The Zobels ultimately decided they wanted to be hands-on at a neighborhood operation. They called their popular Richmond site “our baby.”
So when the opportunity to expand at their current site came, they jumped on it. The expanded taproom and beer garden will “allow us to serve more members of the community that we’re lucky to call home,” Alex said.
“On the production side, we had the opportunity to put in a larger brewhouse and to make the jump from a teeny nano-brewery to a micro-brewery (a big leap for us!), but ultimately we decided we’d rather add more fermentation tanks and continue making small-batch, super fresh, fast-rotating beers so we can always give our guests something new to try,” she said. “When we revisited our values map, we re-confirmed for ourselves that the fun and the passion is still in serving new, fresh, and inventive beers to our neighbors in a space that’s safe and welcoming for all members of our community, and we’re super excited to be able to do a lot more of that.”‘
