USA, CA: Bay Area couple looking for location to open a brewery before next September

A Bay Area couple decided to go into business together and open a brewery. They are still on the hunt for the right space but aim to open doors before next September, Silicon Valley Business Journal reported on October 29.

Zarna and Brijesh Patel began looking into becoming a franchisee for national chain, Brass Tap, in 2019. This year, the Milpitas couple officially signed an agreement with the company and started looking for potential brewery sites in June.

Zarna, a quality systems director for a biotech company, has been in the Bay Area 23 years and her husband Brijesh, a senior technical project manager, has lived locally for 13 years. They are both actively working while trying to launch the brewery.

“Our decision to enter into franchising actually stemmed from our desire to leverage our skills and experience and put it into our own business model that would offer growth opportunity and growth potential,” Zarna said.

The Brass Tap launched its first craft beer bar in 2008 in Florida, and the chain now has more than 50 locations across 16 states. The current sites with closest proximity to the Bay Area are in Vacaville, Modesto, Hollister and Marina.

“[Brass Tap] presented us with an opportunity to build a business with a proven concept, with a proven framework that would allow us to apply our technical expertise in an exciting way,” Zarna said.

The Patels are open minded when it comes to what city they want to set up shop in and are looking across the Bay Area. Some criteria regarding what location they pick comes from Brass Tap.

“There are options, however our criteria requirements don’t meet all of them,” Brijesh said.

One standard that the site must meet is being on the endcap of a street, which creates more visibility, the couple said. The site must also have easy and safe access to parking, along with patio space. Zarna and Brijesh said that preferably the location would be in a plaza with an anchor store.

They said it has been challenging to find a site that checks all of the boxes.

The Patels are not looking to build from the ground up.

“We have been touring local spots and we are going to several locations,” Zarna said.

The couple hopes to open another Brass Tap bar once they get the first one off the ground.

“We want to make it as successful as any other franchises like Buffalo Wild Wings, for example, like Lazy Dog,” Zarna said. “That’s what I aspire to.”

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