by Big Ditch Brewing Co.
After the incredibly exciting announcement we made on November 15th that we’ll be opening a Tap Room and Brewery in Lockport in 2024, we thought it might make sense to explain the rationale behind that decision, as well as let you know a bit more about what’s coming next.
The beginning of the discussion around the Lockport Tap Room began in mid-2023. We began by assessing our progress on the planned Transit Road location, which had gone much slower than we originally hoped. We’re still planning on getting that location open one day, but by the middle of 2023, we were fairly eager to open a second Tap Room, which we’ve always felt we had the potential to do.
Enter our partners at Iskalo Development. At the same time we were having our discussions, they were finishing renovations of the Historic Post Office at One East Avenue in Lockport. Both the exterior and the interior of the building are beautiful and have been wonderfully restored. We’re not quite ready to show you an interior picture yet, but believe us, it will be worth the wait. They were hoping to find a tenant for this space. The more we thought about it, the more we loved it.
First, there is a real connection between Big Ditch and Lockport, as the Erie Canal runs right through both of our histories. The story of the Erie Canal is our inspiration and drives us in everything we do. Lockport is perhaps Western New York’s best location to tour the Erie Canal. Lockport features the Flight of Five, the Locks District, and many other activities designed to learn about New York’s famous waterway. The Tap Room at One East Avenue is within walking distance of the Erie Canal, and we’re excited to partner with the City of Lockport to provide a place to relax with food and drink during visits to the Canal.
Second, we know that Lockport has been heavily invested in redevelopment. Lockport, at the present time, reminds us of downtown Buffalo in 2013, when we were first attracted to a space in the middle of a city that seemed like it had a lot of potential for growth. Downtown Buffalo has come a long way since we first opened our original Tap Room in 2015; we are hoping for the same for Lockport.
Additionally, One East Avenue is in close proximity to two fairly recent development projects: the Cornerstone Ice Arena, which features hockey and skating events year-round, and the 1,100 seat Historic Palace Theatre, which features shows and musicals year-round. These excellent venues are a short walk (like, less than a block) from our new Tap Room.
This location in Lockport also has other advantages. It’s located right on Main Street, which means there should be a good amount of traffic (approximately twice as much as our location in Buffalo.) It’s located near plenty of residential housing in Niagara County. Just like our downtown Buffalo location, this new location is right in the middle of the entire county, which means it should be easily accessible by almost anyone that lives there. Finally, an advantage the Lockport location has (that even our downtown Buffalo location doesn’t have) is that it has a large municipal parking lot right behind the Tap Room. Parking should not be an issue here.
All of the above made this Lockport location a perfect venue for our next Tap Room.
The Lockport Tap Room will offer a very similar experience to our downtown Buffalo Tap Room, for those that are familiar, including a full-service dining experience serving our creative and high-quality beers, innovative and hearty food, as well as a varied selection of wine, spirits, cocktails, ciders, and non-alcoholic beverages. Our Tap Room offers something for everyone, even if you don’t like craft beer. (Although we’re pretty good at making beers for people who don’t normally like beer!)
We think that Niagara County could use additional private event spaces, and our Lockport Tap Room will offer this feature. Our downtown Buffalo Tap Room hosts private events such as happy hours, presentations, training & team building events, and company celebrations, as well as social events including weddings, rehearsal dinners, bridal showers, anniversary parties, birthday parties, and reunions. We hope our Lockport Tap Room will attract similar events.
The Lockport Tap Room will feature an outdoor covered patio with seating for about 25 guests. The corridor adjacent to the patio should be an ideal location for live music in the summer, which is an experience our downtown Buffalo tap room only offers on a limited basis, so this will be an exciting new endeavor for us!
There will be a small brewery at the Lockport Tap Room. We’re currently planning on a 2-barrel pilot brewery system with 4 x 2-barrel fermenters. For reference, this is 1/10th the size of the brewery we operate at our East Huron Street brewery in downtown Buffalo. The Lockport brewery is intended for brewing small pilot batches of new and experimental beers. Patrons at the Lockport Tap Room will be some of the first guests to taste these beers and will be able to provide feedback to the staff before larger batches are scaled up and released to the public.
A natural question is: will all the same beer and food offered in downtown Buffalo also be offered in Lockport? The answer is: mostly. There are items we offer in downtown Buffalo we’re super proud of that we want to feature in Lockport. For instance, can you imagine not being able to buy a pint of Hayburner at our Lockport brewery? Or how could we not offer our Breuben, which is made with corned beef brined in our beer, and has been voted as one of the best Reubens in Buffalo? At the same time, we’re pretty sure that the Lockport location will want to put its own spin on the menu, and will likely offer a few dishes, as well as a few unique beers brewed on site, that might not be offered at the downtown Buffalo location.
You’ll just need to wait to see what the menu looks like; we are just as excited to see it as you are!
There will be more news to come. As we get deeper into the construction of the Tap Room, or development of the menu, or hiring our staff, or when we finally announce our opening (!), we’ll be sure to keep you posted at our website and on social media.
Thanks to our loyal customers and our amazing staff for helping us to get this far. We are very excited to #celebrate the opening of our Lockport Tap Room with you!
