San Diego breweries and Bankers Hill eateries join forces, festival ensues
Come tonight, the beer will flow.
On March 22, 2013 from 5 to 9, local San Diego brewers and Bankers Hill restauranteurs will join neighborhood artists at the first annual Bankers Hill Art and Craft Beer Festival. For $20 a person, guests can experience local art and toss back some suds and grub.
This is the second first-annual event hosted by the Bankers Hill Business Group. The goal is to promote businesses in the community, said Jake Sutton, financial advisor and co-founder of the group.
“To just raise the awareness that Bankers Hill is its own distinct business district,” he said.
Nearly five years ago, Sutton asked around for a local chamber of commerce, but was surprised to learn there wasn’t one.
“And talking to other business owners, they were sort of scratching their heads too and saying, ‘Why don’t we have a business improvement district, or some kind of business district?'” he said.
Sutton helped arrange group meetings with local business owners, and in 2011, applied for and received a grant from the Business Improvement District Council. Last October, the business association organized the Taste of Bankers Hill, which featured almost a dozen local eateries.
About 200 people came to the event, Sutton said.
This time, the 21-years-old-and-up event will be held at The Abbey, an early 20th century church-turned-Hornblower Cruises and Events venue.
“The Abbey is a historic building up here on Bankers Hill,” said Christoper Schlerf, executive chef and director of food and beverages for Hornblower.
Constructed in 1910, The Abbey still boasts original stained glass windows, and has enough space to house 11 brewers, 10 artists, five restaurants and hundreds of guests.
“We’re planning right around 400,” Schlerf said.
Including The Abbey, the featured restaurants – Barrio Star, El indio, Pizzicato and Wet Stone Wine Bar – will be offering bites alongside craft brews from: Karl Strauss Brewing Company, Coronado Brewing Company, Helm’s Brewing Co., Manzanita Brewing Company, Aztec Brewing Company, Gordon Biersch Brewing Company, Rock Bottom Brewery, Lightning Brewery, Hillcrest Brewing Company, Mission Brewery and Mike Hess Brewing.
Sutton said the business association plans on hosting both the Bankers Hill Art and Craft Beer Festival and the Taste of Bankers Hill each year to draw outsiders to the area.
“But also so that Bankers Hill business owners can mingle and kind of meet with each other too,” he said.
About the Author
Tarryn Mento Ever the fan of both eating and writing, Tarryn Mento followed her love for the latter to graduate school at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. The Syracuse native now covers the San Diego food and drink culture for EatSD in her spare time as a freelance multimedia journalist, which is fairly often.
