For a few weeks now, Bagtown Brewery has been closed with paper covering the windows to hide the mess of an interior renovation in the works. The microbrewery, which started as a student entrepreneurship class project back in 2016, is expanding into the rest of its current building at 45 Main Street in Sackville, taking over the space previously occupied by Sip, and before that, Pi by Crow.
“We’re really excited about it,” says owner Anthony Maddalena. The expansion will double the indoor seating capacity of the brewery, and will also make room for a kitchen space to be operated by an as-yet-unnamed partner.
“We’ve got a great patio in the summertime, but in the offseason, through the colder months, we really want to have a bit more seating to have it be a bit more functional, so we can maybe offer a few different types of events inside,” says Maddalena.
As for the brewery side of things, it will be mostly business as usual, he says, though there will be new products on offer. “We’re taking the opportunity to sort of expand what we’re doing with the bar in terms of what taps we have, and what products we’ll be offering,” says Maddalena.
The bigger change will involve more than drinks. “We’ve also taken the area that was Sip’s kitchen and service counter area, and we’re sort of reworking that a little bit,” says Maddalena, “making it into a space that will hopefully be a functional kitchen for someone else to come in and operate.”
Maddelena says its still too soon to set a date for reopening, but expects to be back in business sometime in March. It could take even longer before a new food service partner is in place.
“Hopefully there’ll be some good news coming soon about who might be operating a kitchen there and what sort of food they might be serving,” says Maddalena. “As soon as I have a date in mind, I’ll let everybody know.”
