Good location

So we're slowly trudging through the mud.  It's not easy to figure out all the public entities that regulate breweries, but we have a pretty good game plan. And we're moving forward! I'm working on taking the designs from concepts to submittal right now.  Basically, I'm putting together a floor plan, site plan and elevations.

I'm fortunate to say that the search for the right space did not require months of searching through leasing websites and calling brokers - the space was right under my nose.  That's right, I currently work in the building that I will be transforming into a brewery.

It's a beautiful building that's over 100-years old.  It was completely renovated in the early aughts and is currently a fantastic contrast of modern 21st century office space and history.  I'm sad to say, however, that the stained concrete floors are going to need to be torn up to accommodate trench drains and sloped floors in the brewing area.  It's not going to be the easiest space to run a production brewery from - there are no freight doors and our only loading/unloading area is on Fourth Street in Santa Ana, but we will make it work.

Here are a couple of photos pre-brewery to whet your appetite. 

Good directions

A quick summary of how I got here:

When you take up home brewing as a hobby, you get a lot of people that say "why don't you start a brewery."  For the longest time, I responded with "it's not something I can be passionate about." And then, it hit me.

Two thousand and eleven -  In early 2011, a small group of talented entrepreneurs, business executives, and government  officials gathered to discuss their futures.  Some of us had recently been presented with a wake up call - Governor Jerry Brown decided that many of our clients were obsolete, and their operating budgets should be reallocated to the state level to close the budget gap.  So we pondered where we had been, what we were doing, what we wanted to do - and most importantly, why.  By mid 2011, the business concept had fully developed in my mind.  My thoughts ran rampant during my bicycle rides to and from work and I began crafting a business plan and developing financial projections.  Mostly to convince myself that I could do it, but also to communicate to my friends, family and business advisers that I had a good idea (and I wasn't a socialist).  Then the fun began.

December - The conceptual business plan for a brewery was rolled out to my closest business advisers.  These advisers gave me great feedback and asked a lot of questions that I honestly could not answer - which led to more research, phone calls, and emails to suppliers and manufacturers.  This is where Santa Ana came in - Kathy was the first to read my plan, and being a downtown property owner, she immediately offered up the downtown location as a possibility.  (I loved that idea from the start because downtown is one of Orange County's historical urban centers and balances a classic historic charm with an urban grit.)

January - The revised business plan was presented to a small group of investors.  Again, more tough questions led to additional research, the development of the "implementation plan," which includes a marketing direction, conceptual brewery plan, outline of the permitting process, proposed business structure, and a refined launch budget.

February - I circulated the implementation plan to a group of investors and advisers.  I also spent a lot of time on the phone with banks trying to ascertain the probability of including a small business association-backed loan in the financing plan.  With the help of the talented Corinne Mayer, the brand was born - The Good Beer Company was given a face, intended to be gritty, real, and authentic.  I also developed really good concept plans for the space and met with the City.  I shared my concepts, my ideas, and my proposal, and got really good feedback.  I've read about nightmares where cities reject brewery plans - I was lucky.

March - Here we are.  It's pretty interesting to sum up the last couple months and see what has been accomplished - we've come a long way.  I have narrowed down my investor team and I'm planning a small gathering next month.  As for the SBA, I received good feedback after sharing my plan with a local banker and her SBA liaison, so that's slowly moving forward.  I'm also getting really serious about developing the tenant improvement drawings for a City submittal.  It took a while to track down accurate plans, but I now have a really solid base plan to superimpose the new tenant improvements over.  I'm planning to have the submittal package complete within a couple weeks - then we're off to the races!

I'm going to try and catalog this adventure and check in here every once in a while.