This Charlotte restaurant is merging with a local brewery. Here’s why.
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Sunstead Brewing had only been open in Charlotte a few months, but it was long enough for co-founder Ken McGrath to see he needed some help in the food department.
“Food has always been really important to us,” McGrath said. “We thought that (the restaurant) was an integral part of what we wanted to do, so much so that we bought our own food truck.”
Running the truck, however, had its challenges. Margins are slim in the food industry, and McGrath needed someone who understood the business side as it related to food costs, inventory control and regulatory compliance.
McGrath shared some of his concerns with Marc Kieffer, who owns Toucan Louie’s, a café and roastery in the Smallwood neighborhood of Charlotte’s West End.
As it turned out, Kieffer had been thinking of making some changes of his own.
“People kept asking for draft beer and said they’d come in at night and weekends more,” Kieffer said. “That was something I realized maybe we should have done to start with.”
Kieffer needed help on the beer side, and McGrath needed help with food. The two ultimately decided to merge operations but keep two locations, with Sunstead Brewing set to become Toucan Louie’s Gold District when it reopens in a month or so.
“It just seemed like a fit where we could kind of expand both of our presences in the industry,” McGrath said.
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The brewery is currently undergoing a refresh that will bring in more color and greenery to fall in line with the branding at Toucan Louie’s.
“The name kind of gives you a tropical, beachy kind of image,” Kieffer said. “I think that’s what we’re trying to go for over in the Gold District is to make the place feel like a little bit of an escape when you go in there.”
The food
While the food menu has yet to be finalized, expect similar offerings from Toucan Louie’s West End. The brewery will bring in some of the West End location’s most popular sandwiches and burgers, but as sliders. It’s an option that will be less expensive and more shareable, which Kieffer thinks will work well at the brewery.
“We’re starting with the tried and true things that people like to eat when they’re at the bar,” Kieffer said. “My thing has always been that just because it’s a burger or chicken wings, that doesn’t mean you can’t have the best ones around.”
If there is demand for it in the future, the brewery could open for breakfast, brunch or lunch as well. The West End location roasts its own coffee, which may find its way to the Gold District location (and possibly into some of that brewery’s beers).
The beer
As for the beer lineup, that will undergo a refresh of its own. The brewery dumped the beers it had brewed before the COVID-19 stay-at-home order, and a new, yet-to-be-announced brewer has been working on a “varied lineup” of styles that share one thing in common. “They’re all kind of geared toward drinkable beers,” McGrath said. “I think out of the 10 beers we have right now, six of them are 5 percent (ABV) or lower.”
Some of the beers in the initial lineup will include Neon Panther, a 5% ABV Northeastern IPA; Longbill, a 7.2% West Coast IPA; and Anything But Common, a 4.2% ABV Kentucky Common. The brewery’s Even Keel is a non-alcoholic pale ale that comes in under 1% ABV (it’s a trend McGrath thinks we’ll see more of in the industry). Toucan Louie’s Gold District also has a new canning line and will soon be packaging its beers.
At the West End location, Kieffer has installed a bar and eight taps, which will pour local drafts until the brewery’s new beers are ready to go. Future plans also call for the West End location to have a small pilot brewery of its own.
After weeks of being open only for to-go orders, Toucan Louie’s West End will open for indoor and patio service Friday in accordance with Gov. Roy Cooper’s move into Phase Two of the COVID-19 reopening plan.
While it’s been a challenging period, Kieffer notes that it has afforded him and McGrath the time to do things like install the West End location’s draft system and to bring the Toucan Louie’s brand to the brewery.
“I know this has been a bad thing for a lot of people,” Kieffer said. “But it hasn’t been the worst thing in the world for us. It’s given us the chance to do some things that we wanted to do.”
Toucan Louie’s
2753 Rozzelles Ferry Road (West End), 1200 S. Graham St. (Gold District)
Instagram: @toucanlouies_westend
This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 12:57 PM.
