When considering local brewing operations, only one fits as snugly as a flip-flop with San Diego’s surfside style and sun-friendly beer styles. That institution is 34-year strong grub-and-grog chain Pizza Port. Established in 1987 in Solana Beach, the company has grown to include a quintet of brewery-equipped restaurants, four of which are within San Diego County. Currently, the southern terminus for the award-winning interest is Ocean Beach, but that will change next year when Pizza Port debuts its sixth location, a brewpub in the nation’s southwestern-most municipality, Imperial Beach.
“We kind of keep a mental list of areas we think would be a great fit for Pizza Port. IB is definitely one of them and the location was too good to pass up on, so it felt pretty serendipitous,” says co-founder Gina Marsaglia (pictured above with brother and Pizza Port co-founder Vince Marsaglia). “IB is an iconic San Diego beach and surf community with a rapidly growing appetite for craft beer and a local vibe that we feel Pizza Port will fit in with well and, hopefully, add to over time.”
The IB brewpub is being constructed in a 3,200-square-foot building on Palm Avenue that was previously split into three units, which housed a café and a pair of retail shops. Following single-unit plans developed by Hauck Achitecture, local design-build firm CLTVT will bring down the interior walls to convert the building into a brewpub equipped with bar-top and picnic-table seating for roughly 75 customers. A beer garden figures to seat about that same number of visitors, and the venue’s bar will be accessible from both the indoor and outdoor areas. The IB brewpub will also include a to-go window for takeout business, a design feature added to accommodate modern-day services preferences that have emerged during the pandemic era.
On the brewing side, a seven-barrel brewhouse (the same size as the beermaking apparatus at Pizza Port’s original brewpub) will be located adjacent to the bar. Meanwhile, the cellar will consist of a stacked tank farm that will be located outdoors and be visible from Palm Avenue. The brewpub figures to add between 700 and 800 barrels of beer to the company’s total annual production. Marsaglia has yet to decide who will handle brewing at the new location but intends to follow Pizza Port’s long-standing tradition of promoting from within.
Though Pizza Port broke ground on the project last week, the project has been in the works for years. Pizza Port selected its site in 2018 and was ready to start development of the space in early 2020, but the pandemic arrived and through their hospitality-based world into disarray.
“We needed to shift focus to managing the rapidly changing operating environment that was 2020 and early-2021. Once that stabilized, we shifted back to design and working with the City of Imperial Beach to get approved to build,” says Marsaglia. “Since we resumed focus on the project earlier this year, it has moved pretty smoothly. IB has been great to work with and it definitely feels like there is mutual excitement for this project. It has been a long journey.”
Any doubt as to IB residents’ thirst for craft beer has been answered care of a satellite tasting room from Miramar-based Mike Hess Brewing. That venue has attracted large crowds since opening unannounced in 2019 as little more than a 1,650-square-foot building supplemented by picnic-table seating atop an unfinished dirt lot. Customers continued to flock to the spot through years of plodding construction of what is now an expansive, multi-tiered beer garden.
Conversely, Pizza Port’s IB location will be delivered in a single phase. Marsaglia believes that will occur in the first half of 2022. Once open, the brewpub will be the city’s third brewery-owned venue, joining Mike Hess’ aforementioned spot and a bar and restaurant operated by Coronado Brewing. A tasting room from Chula Vista’s Novo Brazil Brewing is also en route, yet Pizza Port will have the unique distinction of providing the municipality with its first-ever brewery.
Pizza Port’s upcoming brewing will be located at 204 Palm Avenue in Imperial Beach