Brew 22 growing into new building

By Jamie Swinnerton
Tompkins Weekly

 

When Riley Brewer was a kid he remembers running around his mom’s store, Laser Brewer Boutique, just off Route 13 going North, with his friends. For generations, his family has been investing in and building their own businesses. Now, Brewer is ready to expand his coffee cart, Brew 22, into a full-blown café and tap room when his mom closes her boutique later this year.

After doing a few internships in what Brewer categorized as “corporate America,” Brewer said that although he enjoyed them he knew he wanted to start something for himself. While visiting his sister in Seattle he fell for the countless coffee carts that the city has. When he came home to Dryden he crunched the numbers and decided it was a venture worth investing in right here in Tompkins County.

“We opened on August 22 last year and we’ve been off to the races so far,” Brewer said. “The plan was – when I decided I was going to do this – we knew at some point my mom was going to be going out of business we just didn’t know when. I figured this was going to be a good proof of concept, a good way to build the brand, build a customer base before we moved in there.”

Currently, the Brew 22 coffee cart operates out of the Laser Brewer Boutique parking lot, so the move will be a minimal one. Brewer said that initially, he hadn’t expected his mom to close the boutique for several years, but she ended up wanting to close it earlier.

“It actually turned out really well,” Brewer said. “We got to the point in the last couple of months where we’re so busy that I can’t stock enough stuff in here to keep up. So, we’re out buying stuff every single day to be able to get ready for the next day.”

Brewer said he expects to open the new place, Brew 22 Café and Tap Room, by early November. Inside will be a full cafe serving the same coffee menu that the coffee cart has currently. But along with the coffee menu, there will be soups, sandwiches, salads, a full kitchen and an in-house bakery. He hopes to have at least 16 craft beers on tap, 10 of them local. Eventually, Brewer wants to expand the beer menu to 30, bring in wine from the region, and if possible, add on a beer garden.

 

He really wants the place to become a spot for locals to sit down and enjoy themselves, take their time sipping a latte or a beer, maybe play a little cornhole.
But the first iteration of Brewer’s dream, the Brew 22 coffee cart, won’t just be forgotten as the business expands.

“The plan right now is, when we move into the store we’re going to pull all of the equipment out of here and use it in there which brings our start-up costs down a little bit just because the espresso machine is quite pricey,” Brewer said. “This will get parked for the winter. This can’t really go anywhere in the winter because it’s really hard to tow and there’s so much involved with it. So, starting next spring this thing will start going out.”

He’s already had interest from some businesses along the lake and a few sporting events that want the cart when the weather is nice. Nothing about the cart is going to change, the menu will stay the same, including all the bagels and baked goods.

Although Brewer is a mostly self-taught barista on the espresso bar, when the business expands he will be hiring about 10 more people, including a chef, to run the business. Because the new Brew 22 will be serving both coffee and beer the hours will be long, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. To accommodate the early morning coffee drinkers who have already made Brew 22 their go-to morning place, a to-go window will be added to the building and the parking lot widened.

Currently, Brew 22 serves coffee from local roaster Abner Argueta, who roasts Argueta’s coffee in Freeville. This local relationship isn’t going anywhere, Brewer said. In fact, Argueta’s coffee will also be expanding with the move.

“He’s super easy to work with, he’s just super down to Earth,” Brewer said. “Abner is actually moving all of his roasting into the building. He already has a specific room in there that we have decided that he’ll do all of his roasting in there. Keep it super local.”

Argueta will train Brewer how to roast the coffee so that the business doesn’t have to stop when Argueta travels to Guatemala to check on the coffee beans he imports. For both Brewer and Argueta quality is everything.

“The big plan of that place is to keep everything centered around how we originally started in here,” Brewer said. “Granted, we’re adding sandwiches and stuff but we just want quality coffee, quality baked goods, and obviously just adding in the beer and food. We’re just standing on what we have in this little box.”

One of the many upsides of Brew 22 moving into the Laser Brewer Boutique is that the building will stay in the family. An entrepreneurial spirit runs through numerous branches of this family tree. It was this knowledge and support, Brewer said, that helped create Brew 22 here in Tompkins County, instead of anywhere else.

“It was important to me to be able to grow something from nothing and be able to look back and say ‘That was a successful life choice,’” Brewer said. “I didn’t expect it to be coffee, and I didn’t expect it to be when I was this young.”

Brewer will be 23 when the business expands into its new location.