By Joshua Schuetz
Downtown Spring Grove will soon be awash with music and the smell of craft beer and homemade barbeque, thanks to CEDA and the Spring Grove and Houston County EDAs.
Fat Pat’s Brewery, a local food truck specializing in Texas-style barbeque and craft brewing will have a location in downtown Spring Grove. CEDA team members Courtney Bergey Swanson and Allison Wagner worked with the owner of Fat Pat’s, Patrick Longmire Jr. to secure more than $100,000 in loan funding from the two EDAs for the new location.
Longmire Jr. comes from a family of entrepreneurs-his father owns the city’s grocery store-and he was inspired to try his hand at cooking barbeque after working in Texas.
“He started smoking barbeque out of the store and that grew into a food truck business, which in turn grew into a restaurant wing added onto the store,” Bergey Swanson said. “They were selling out regularly, so they were trying to figure out the next step.”
As conversations evolved, so too did the project, resulting in a plan to renovate a former auto mechanic shop in downtown Spring Grove. The project cost more than $1,000,000, with the Spring Grove and Houston County EDAs contributing $40,000 and $80,000 through their respective revolving loan funds. Fat Pat’s also received an additional $15,000 in grant funding through the Spring Grove EDA’s Restaurant Challenge program. “It’s been so fun to see this project evolve and we’re very excited for their opening,” Wagner said.
While the brewery does have a restaurant component, Bergey Swanson said it can also be considered a manufacturing business, due to the products it will create at its location. “We started to think about it as a manufacturing project, because they’re producing their own barbeque and brewing their own beer onsite,” Bergey Swanson said.
Fat Pat’s is also partnering with another local entrepreneur to create craft pizza, which will also be served at the brewery. Bergey Swanson said Fat Pat’s is a great example of the next generation forging a legacy in small-town Minnesota. “It’s cool to think of ways to help people grow in your community, and I love the story of how we can help the people who come back to our communities,” she said.