Over the past few years, downtown’s East Village area has garnered much attention from breweries looking to install brewpubs and satellite tasting rooms. Some have flourished, some have floundered and others have closed altogether. One that has taken a more adaptive stance, analyzing the likes and dislikes of East Village denizens and visitors, then working to adjust their menu and way of doing things, has been Duck Foot Brewing. The Miramar-based operation opened an eatery in the Village in 2018 with a gluten-free menu to match its gluten-reduced beers, then fine-tuned the following year, finding solutions that upped patronage. Based on the balance sheet, it was working…then the pandemic struck, negating all their hard work. Being thwarted by a virus and resultant government regulations made it all the more disheartening for Duck Foot’s ownership when, two weeks ago, they came to the difficult decision to close the East Village venue for good. Then, all of a sudden, a ray of hope pierced through the gray.
“We were approached by a new neighbor of ours down in the East Village called Harvest Grill, a newly formed operation that ran banquets at the downtown Hilton for the last 10 years,” says Duck Foot owner Matt Delvecchio. Harvest Grill was interested in holding private events at Duck Foot’s downtown spot and assisting in a food-vendor capacity at the company’s Miramar brewery. “The spot they opened just happened to be down the street from our East Village location, which has remained closed due to the constantly changing rules along with other complications like us just not having the bandwidth to operate both of our locations with a reduced staff, so we asked them if they would be interested in operating it with us.”
Harvest Grill’s leadership trio loved the idea and has signed on to be responsible for the menu and food-service elements at Duck Foot’s Taproom and Kitchen. Them coming aboard will let the brewery to focus on what they do best—beer—and allow for the venue to reopen to the public this Saturday, September 12.
“In all honesty, they’re going to do food and service better than we can, so it’s really a win-win and, hopefully, the community will support it,” says Delvecchio. “The compromise for us is that the restaurant was entirely gluten-free, but now will have some items on the menu that will contain gluten, like a steak sandwich. Being Celiac, I am OK with that, because that’s a very easy product to contain as far as cross-contamination goes. It’s not like a shared fryer, for instance.”
Harvest Grill’s full array of sandwiches includes the aforementioned Baja citrus-marinated skirt steak with panela cheese, charcoal-grilled chicken with guacamole and cilantro crema, and dry-rubbed smoked pork on Hawaiian brioche. The rest of the menu includes tacos, salads (red quinoa and watermelon-tomato) and a variety of sides, including street corn, confit potatoes and “drunken” frijoles made with mezcal and beer.
Despite the East Village being in jeopardy due to COVID-19, Duck Foot co-owner and Chief Fermentation Officer, Brett Goldstock reports the overall business at the Miramar taproom is “booming” care of a large, socially-distanced outdoor dining area that’s bringing in record crowds each weekend. He is hopeful that will be further bolstered by numerous taproom-only releases of beers (including a honey ale with blueberries called Honey Blu Blue) and a variety of beer slushies. Duck Foot will also be ramping up its barrel-aged and specialty bottle releases in the coming months.
Goldstock and Delvecchio will both oversee the East Village location, but it will be staffed by Harvest Grill employees. Both co-owners are excited to reopen the venue and plan to celebrate the occasion by tapping some specialty beers on Saturday.
“It’s all pretty amazing this worked out,” says Delvecchio. “All we have to do now is get some people in the door.”
The hours of operation for Duck Foot’s East Village location will be 12 to 10 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday for the remainder of the month, at which point ownership will reassess what it calls its “COVID hours.”
Duck Foot Brewing’s brewery and tasting room is located at 8920 Kenamar Drive, #210, in Miramar, and its downtown taproom and kitchen is located at 550 Park Boulevard, #2104, in the East Village