Anonymous
(file photo)
Update by edhat staff
The Santa Barbara Brewing Company on State Street will soon be closing and reopen as ” Cruisery .”
The long-time State Street brewery and restaurant will be converted to the new concept by mid-October of this year.
New owner Aron Ashland, who currently owns Santa Barbara Wine Therapy, plans to bring bicycle and craft beer cultures together with a fresh menu and interior improvements, reports John Palminteri of KEYT News.
The 40 current employees will be interviewed for job openings at the new restaurant.
By an edhat reader
I just heard that the Santa Barbara Brewing Company gave its entire staff two-weeks notice that it will be closing down soon. Does anyone have any more information on this?
We used to go there quite a bit, too many bums hanging around my vehicle and mouthing off…
Their product, food and drink, just isn’t as good as newer competitor’s. That, not bums, is the major issue.
For the most part, no one on here is an expert on dealing with homeless. I don’t expect anyone to offer a solution on an edhat forum. This forum is being used as just one tool to raise the awareness and visibility of the problem. It allows people to vent with the hopes someone of authority might get a better sense of the concerns of the community. In general, I think most people are fed up with the inaction of the city. Yes, it’s a national problem, but we can’t wait for the Federal Government to fix this. There are things that can be done locally, all we want is action and transparency. I want my tax dollars to go fixing this problem. If one option doesn’t work, try something else. I’m as liberal as they come, but I’m at the point where shipping Bums out of town is better than doing nothing. Or, how about enacting and enforcing sit/lie laws downtown? Prohibit panhandling? Enough coddling and complaining about not enough housing. I fear it’s going to take someone getting killed (like in Ventura) for serious measures are taken.
I haven’t had a need or desire to go downtown for years.
The area of lower State St. between Cota and Gutierrez has become a pretty rough part of town. Any person transiting that area day or night will be accosted verbally and possibly even physically by all manner of people seeking money to support their drug/alcohol habits. The smell of the area is similar to a camp latrine on a hot summer day. People who give cash to the transients only make a bad situation worse. Businesses will continue to leave the area until the situation improves, or until rents drop dramatically.
Not a surprise, their beer has always been mediocre at best. For years they were the only brewery on State St or anywhere near by (Brewhouse aside). But with the addition of a number of much, much, much better brewers and brewerys in the last few years, it became inevitable that this place would close down. Its a tough town to make it in with 2018 rents and our current crop of inept civic leaders…
too bad – good time memories for me when I was single and no babies… don’t get out much anymore.
I do not enjoy going down to State Street anymore. NOw we mostly drive through and inevitably, we see cops addressing some homeless person who harrassed passersby. Goleta is way better. State Street is dying.
In 1980 rents were about 20% of anyone’s dream to open a restaurant.
By 2000 rents were about 35%, but still, the dream stayed alive.
In 2018 rents are turning dreams into nightmares.
Rents aren’t all the costs of doing business, but are now eating up all the slack for mistakes. Drop a burger on the floor? Can’t afford it. Sell that thing! It’s now impossible to be inefficient. If the property is not owned by someone who amassed too much in the 70s, then it is now a part of a REIT investment portfolio that promises shareholder returns that care less about any local economy.
State Street NEEDS to fail. The shoe should have dropped in 2008 to be realigned. Instead the sucking sound continues.
Really sad to see them close. Nice, friendly place to go with good food, beer, sports. Great pizza, burgers, sandwiches. When will the city council wake up and realize while they are banning straws, our city is falling apart. Yes, I do think the bums and panhandlers discourage people from dining downtown.
Transients. Gang attacks on each other. As long as I’m in danger (as a witness or victim) when going downtown to eat or shop, I’ll not go. The City can encourage new businesses to come into the empty stores, but how will they convince customers to return?
This comment is right on point. Add in the city’s untenable and uber-myopic support to the tourist trade (corporate hotels + developers) over any and all local businesses and you have a serious threat not only to State St but to the city itself. Our local government has over spent, over-predicted returns and mismanaged our city so badly that we’re heading straight towards insolvency and huge tax increases in the next decade. Meanwhile they’re placating to the far left, banning straws, building more low income housing and ignoring the fact, figures and impending tsunami of pension liabilities. I say this as a Democrat mind you. The city, its heart and soul and its future are now owned by corporate and national party interests. Damn the middle income family or the small business owner…
I had some good times there in my 20’s. But even then it wasn’t the food, service, or beer that would bring me through the door, it was just a convenient place to meet with friends. The last few years, I can’t say I have had any desire to go there. Considering the Bums and High Rents, this isn’t a surprise. Ok, SB City Council what’s your move? Maybe it’s time for something more dramatic, experimental, and/or even Draconian. We’re getting really close to a breaking point in this town.
Hope it’s dog friendly (and they hide their storage better than wine therapy on the back patio). Where will all the bikes park as not a lot of bike racks on that corner?
Probably since all the locals quit going and their only customers were from the cruise ships for a beer on their way back to ship it seemed natural.
For all of you complaining about bums and transients, I don’t see you offering any solutions beyond kicking them out of town so that they can become someone else’s problem. If it was an easy problem to solve, they would have done it. This is really a national problem and should be dealt with on a national level. Small towns with a conscience should not have to figure this out on their own.
So I am waiting to see those that pointed the finger of shame at the “homeless” on lower State Street to apologize now that its is known that a new restaurant is moving into this space immediately and that their nasty knee-jerk speculation that the “bums” are what killed the first brewery is known to be false. I think we will have to wait until global climate change brings high tide to this restaurant to hear any mea culpa’s from them.
Whoa…what a moment of confession!!! I haven’t any desire or reason to visit downtown Aspen for decades and don’t plan to do so. Does that help?-