Clint Bautz waited five years to move Lake Effect Brewing into a former Northwest Side fire station. Finally, he could wait no longer.
Bautz has pulled the plug on his long-awaited and oft-delayed move to the 116-year-old Jefferson Park building to open instead 3 miles south, in a former auto repair shop at 3076 N. Milwaukee Ave., at the northern edge of the Logan Square neighborhood.
Bautz, a former architect and urban planner, had grown attached to giving a second life to the former fire station, which sits a mile from his home. But after so long in limbo while operating Lake Effect from an alley off Montrose Avenue, he’s glad to finally have concrete plans that will lead to more exposure.
“I’m relieved I’m moving forward more than I am disappointed,” he said.
Bautz hopes to be brewing in the new space by the end of the year and to have the taproom open by spring.
In Chicago’s robust brewing landscape, Lake Effect is one of the smallest breweries, producing about 500 barrels of beer per year. The new space is hardly massive: a modest 1,600 square feet that will house both production and a taproom, plus outside space Bautz will attempt to covert to year-round use. The move is a bid for stability rather than marked growth; Bautz likes operating a neighborhood joint in a big city.
“The focus was always to be locally focused and not to take over the world,” he said.
The redevelopment of the former fire station, at 4841 N. Lipps Ave., has been years in planning and will go on, said Tim Pomaville, president of developer Ambrosia Homes. Pomaville said he wants to anchor the property’s first floor with another brewery, bar or restaurant with flair, the kind of opening more commonly associated with the West Loop or Logan Square. “Something fun people will get excited about that we really don’t have in Jefferson Park,” he said. Eight apartments are planned above.
The redevelopment has been dogged by factors including slow permitting from the city, the COVID-19 pandemic, remediation that Pomaville said included removing lead paint and asbestos and the discovery of “new structural items we didn’t know existed.” There was also a lawsuit in November 2020 by the Polish cultural organization the Copernicus Foundation, which said its bid to buy the building was never seriously considered by the city.
The lawsuit was dismissed in early 2021; Ambrosia Homes closed on the property that spring.
Pomaville said he was disappointed to lose Lake Effect as a tenant but bears no ill will.
“Nothing has been fast through this entire process,” he said. “He’s got to do what he’s got to do for his business. There’s a long way to go, and I think that’s what Clint was looking at.”
Two murals remain painted on the old fire station doors touting Lake Effect as its future anchor. Bautz said he was all-in on the project, even as it dragged on.
“I live in the neighborhood and I love the building,” Bautz said. “I saw it as a catalyst for development and things the neighborhood needs.”
But Bautz said he could wait no longer once his current landlord told him come spring, he’d be losing the space where he has operated Lake Effect since 2012, at 4727 W. Montrose Ave.
“We realized real quickly that there was gonna be a pretty big gap in production if we waited — we’d be waiting and waiting,” he said.
Lake Effect will bring a unique business model to its new home. Like most breweries, it makes an array of beers under its own banner available year-round and seasonally, including a wit, an India pale ale and a blonde ale. About half his production, though, is beers co-branded with other businesses and organizations, including four beers with the legendary Superdawg hot dog restaurant, plus beers for the Morton Arboretum, Noble Square bar Chipp Inn and Recess restaurant in the West Loop.
Lake Effect will continue with its partnerships, but in its new home the brewery will also be able to slide beers across the bar to customers for the first time — one of the most reliable sources of profit for small breweries.
Higher ceilings will allow for taller fermentation tanks and for Lake Effect to approximately double production, Bautz said. Most of that beer will be consumed on site, a crucial step for stabilizing business after years of ups and downs operating from the alley.
“Being able to serve people on site is the best thing for small, local breweries, where stability is reached,” he said. “We wanted to have a taproom by year two or three. It took us 10 years.”
A clear path forward for Lake Effect, especially having navigated the depths of the pandemic, makes Bautz feel as if “we got our mojo back.”
“It’s our project, and we can do what we want in the space,” he said. “We’ll do the best we can (to be open by spring). But I don’t think it’ll take five years.”
