Last October, as Novo Brazil Brewing was opening its fourth location, a bar inside National City’s Market on 8th collective, the Chula Vista-based company was already eyeing the fifth link in a chain that is coiled almost exclusively within the South Bay. Far larger than its National City sister spot, that work-in-progress project is a full-scale, new-construction restaurant in Imperial Beach that will look out onto the San Diego Bay from Florence Street.
Half of a hospitality development dubbed Bikeway Village, the 7,500-square-foot space was originally secured by Coronado Brewing as a place to house a 10-barrel brewery, distillery and full-service restaurant in 2017. It would have been the company’s second Imperial Beach location, joining a bar and eatery on Seacoast Drive, but changes in the beer market led Coronado Brewing’s management to move on from the project, leaving the space available for Novo Brazil to continue its South Bay expansion efforts.
When asked why the location was an ideal fit for the company, Novo Brazil Director of Operations Hugo Thomaz says, “It’s a good business opportunity and a great location with a patio and a view of the bay in the only South Bay community we aren’t already present in. Additionally, there is a lack of restaurants and breweries in the area.”
Currently, the only two brewery-owned venues in the city limits are the aforementioned Coronado Brewing outpost, which is just a block from Mike Hess Brewing’s Imperia Beach tasting room. Both are miles from Bikeway Village, but Pizza Port is in the midst of constructing its sixth brewpub on Palm Avevnue. That venue is scheduled to open by June and is just a mile-and-a-half away. The addition of Novo Brazil’s and Pizza Port’s projects will make for a beer landscape that’s a far cry from what it was in 2014 when breweries had zero presence in Imperial Beach.
South Bay sudscapes have historically been slow to start up but have grown rather impressively over the past decade. Chula Vista is currently home to seven brewery-owned venues, and while National City has only ever had one operating brewery at a time (the failed Embarcadero Brewing and current beer-and-ice-cream operation Hannegan’s House Beer Co. & Creamery), it has a new entrant working to get open.
It took time, but the concept of local, community-centric craft beer has been proven in San Diego County’s southernmost regions, and companies like Novo Brazil that saw potential when others did not, are better off for it. “We realized that breweries don’t want to be in the South Bay, but we have always believed in the area,” says Thomaz. “The area has expanded a lot in the past years and there are definitely a lot of opportunities here.”
Novo Brazil opened in an industrial complex in Chula Vista’s Eastlake neighborhood in 2015. After building up that facility, the company added additional production and cellar capacity by opening a sprawling 12,000-square-foot brewpub in Chula Vista’s Otay Ranch Town Center shopping mall in 2019. The following year, when Culture Brewing vacated its tasting room in downtown Ocean Beach, Novo Brazil snatched up the spot, converting it to reflect its colorful motif and present its beers along with its line of Nova Easy Kombucha alcoholic kombucha. The Market on 8th bar opened last year, and if all goes as planned the Imperial Beach location will be ready in September, making for four straight years featuring new Novo Brazil project debuts.
The Imperial Beach venue figures to offer the same food menu as Novo Brazil’s Otay brewpub. That bill of fare includes casual fare (nachos, mozzarella sticks, salads and burgers) augmented by Brazilian-inspired dishes like empanadas, yucca fries, cokinha (chicken croquets) and picanha (top sirloin).
The floor plan is still being finalized, but if there is sufficient space, management will explore the option of having a brewhouse and cellar on-site. Last year, Novo Brazil produced 10,700 barrels of beer, and its goal for 2022 is up its barrelage to up that figure by 30%.
Novo Brazil Brewing’s upcoming project will be located at 535 Florence Street in Imperial Beach