East Lansing mayor Diane Goddeeris, left, waters a pot which contains hops used to brew beer Monday during the ground-breaking event of the new HopCat restaurant located on the first floor of The Residences. The craft beer restaurant will feature 100 taps of a various beers and is expected to open in early August of 2013. Adam Toolin/The State News
—The shovels were for the renovation. The hops were for beer.
As workers padded through exposed earth during construction on an open space inside The Residences planned for HopCat East Lansing, city officials wiggled their fingers in pots of dirt to plant hops during the groundbreaking for the brewpub Monday.
The hop plants, which Barfly Ventures project manager and East Lansing resident Sam Short said grow like weeds, will grow tall along with the building and will be ready for display on the outdoor patio of the brewpub once it is scheduled to open in early August.
Students from MSU will be able to see the tall building from campus, said HopCat owner Mark Sellers, an MSU alumnus.
Music performance senior Roger Pan, who tried a fruity brew with raspberry tones when he visited the other location with alumna Juliana Kartsimas, said he was excited for the East Lansing location.
“We love the Grand Rapids location, so we were very excited when we heard rumors it was moving to East Lansing,” Pan said.
It’s HopCat’s first location outside Grand Rapids, and although the brewpub is about 20 minutes from Grand Valley State University’s campus, Sellers said he’s prepared to deal with the seasonal ebb and flow of students common in college cities, such as East Lansing.
He said between 20 and 25 percent of customers at the Grand Rapids location are students, and university breaks slow down business there as well.
But Sellers and city officials hope the brewpub will attract more residents and local business owners looking to have a beer with dinner, not just students hopping from bar to bar on Friday nights.
“I think East Lansing needs something like this, it’s a place where you can actually think about what you drink,” Sellers said. “It’s friendly to all different age groups, not just college students.”
City officials will be keeping their eyes on the bar to ensure it’s not just another haven for patrons looking to drink.
City ordinance mandates at least half of sales come from food, not alcohol.
About 51 percent of sales at the Grand Rapids location are food, Sellers said.
After HopCat began the approval process through the East Lansing City Council, the council approved a temporary ban on providing additional liquor licenses for businesses to sell past midnight in March.
The 180-day moratorium was meant to give city officials time to review the more than 25 businesses in the city selling alcohol and to examine enforcement of alcohol-related violations.
Although aspects of the business, including its high seating capacity and niche market for beer, caused council members to “give pause,” East Lansing Mayor Diane Goddeeris said that doesn’t mean HopCat isn’t a good fit for the city.
“It isn’t fair for us to say, ‘They aren’t what we want’ because they offered a different type of restaurant for our type of environment,” Goddeeris said.
It’s the atmosphere that hooked Kartsimas and Pan.
Pan said the quality of the beer likely will attract residents and business owners looking to unwind after a day’s work. Kartsimas said it might be a hot spot for graduate students and other older students.
“You can tell they put care into what they’re brewing,” she said.
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