By K.D. Norris
It may have taken a little longer that expected, but Wyoming’s TwoGuys Brewing has opened in an old city firehouse and a one-time 7-Eleven convenience store in, and for, the Wyoming Park community.
And Tom Payne — managing partner, brewmaster and all-around craft-brew guru — says he plans for the new taproom to be as much as community meeting place as a place to quaff a beer, and he hopes the business is just the beginning of a continued renaissance in the area.
“Some folk see breweries as bars, we are not a bar,” Payne said last week to WKTV. “We are a place where people come together. We just happen to have beer. I keep going back to (my belief) that our beer and our food is the least important thing in this building. We are here for our community.
“We have no TVs in here, by design. This is a place for our community to come together and talk and meet your neighbor. We have all gotten disconnected. This is the place to reconnect. … That is what TwoGuys is — this is a place were people come together.”
TwoGuys is also, Payne hopes, the beginning of better days for the neighborhood in which he grew up, lives and now has opened his business.
“The biggest reason (for placing their business in Wyoming) is that this is where we live, my wife and I,” Payne said in a previous interview with WKTV. “I grew up in Wyoming Park. I graduated from Wyoming Park. I have lived, aside from my time in the Marine Corps, in this area and it has always been my home.”
Payne still believes in his community.
“We are here to help rebuild Wyoming Park,” he said last week. “This was a thriving business neighborhood, but now it is all dead. So, I really hope that we can bring in some other entrepreneurs into the Wyoming Park area. … Maybe spur on the next thing: ‘What else is the park missing?’… The most important thing is seeing more people come into Wyoming Park.”
The original plans were to open in fall of 2017, but fate and paperwork delayed the opening until March of this year. TwoGuys, located at 2356 Porter St SW, had a soft opening for two weeks in late March but is now fully operational.
The delay in opening had a bit to do with the city and state paperwork necessary in acquisition of the old 7-Eleven building convenience store for the taproom and the city building for the actual breweries. as well as getting the proper proper brewing licensing from the state. But a bit of the delay also had to do with the fact that there was a ton of sweat-equity required — and India Pale Ale expended — in the renovation of the two buildings.
There were some details and delays with the acquisition of the fire barn across the street as the brewery, but “once that got worked out with the city” they had to add a second location to the required state paperwork.”
“It was absolutely a great relationship with the city” in opening the business, Payne said. But “we had to go backtracking a little bit. That is what slowed us down. We were hoping to be open wast September but had to redo somethings.”
Another part of the delay was the complete make-over of the 7-Eleven.
“We gutted the entire tap room building,” Payne said. “The only thing that remains, that is left, of the 7-Eleven, is the our cooler wall, where the glass doors are. We kept those for a little bit of nostalgia.”
The work, he said, he and his partners did as a “second- and third-shift, after working their day jobs. … I really want to thank Founders and their All Day IPA. We drank a lot of that as we were working on this place.”
Payne credits Larry Kerkstra, Aaron Roberts, Andy Zapolnik and TwoGuys chef Kris Lohraff as being partners at work and partners at driving down the supply of All Day.
Now they have their own brews for work parties.
For more information on TwoGuys Brewery and Taproom is open Monday through Saturday, closed Sundays. For more information call the taproom at 616-881-2260 or visit twoguysbrewing.beer .
