The Growler Haus craft beer “tribe” will expand into downtown Greer early next year.
Upstate entrepreneur Craig Kinley said he has signed a lease on the 2,000-square-foot space at 213 Trade St., formerly home to Rhythm and Brews, for the fifth installment of his Anderson-based Growler Haus concept.
It is the company’s second new planned to open during the early part of 2017. The other will be a 2,400-square-foot location with an 800-square-foot beer garden at 12 Lois Ave. in the Village of West Greenville.
“We have been looking at downtown Greer for about a year now,” said Kinley, who founded Growler Haus in 2012 after spending two decades in the telecom industry. “A good friend of mine, John Lummus with Upstate Alliance, told me to look at Greer because it’s hot… Everything just fell into place. We are very excited about it… We look forward to integrating ourselves into the community.”
Kinley said the store will have the traditional “coffee house” feel of his existing locations in Anderson, Spartanburg and Fountain Inn. It will create four to six new jobs, he said.
It will have a range of local and regional craft beers, a menu of tasty tapas foods and plenty of cozy furniture where customers can lounge after a hard day at work or socialize with friends.
“We’re really excited to be part of a tight-knit downtown,” said Ashley Hileski, who will manage the store. “We feel like we’re a little bit different; a little unique. And we think we’ll be a complement to other outstanding restaurants and shops that are in downtown Greer.”
Kinley said he plans to brighten the space up with fresh paint. He wants to accentuate some of the historic character of the building, such as exposed brick and wooden beams.
He thanked Greer officials for supporting his move to the city.
“We’re very excited to have them,” said Kyle Mensing, commercial development director for the Greer Development Corp. “It was a pleasure working with Craig and his team… There are a lot of great things happening in Greer.”
Kinley mentioned the South Carolina Ports Authority’s Inland Port, BMW, Michelin North America and other industrial developments as reasons why he’s optimistic about the future of the Greer store.
Mensing said the city’s gross retail sales during the 2016 fiscal year were more than $1.15 million. He said there were 475 housing starts through the end of November and the amount invested in residential construction in Greer was more than $118 million.
In terms of economic development, Greer landed 13 projects in 2016 worth more than $68 million in capital investment that created 344 new jobs.
