Harpoon Brewery may call Boston home, but the second largest brewer in Massachusetts has always had a close connection to Worcester through its founder, Dan Kenary, who grew up on Coolidge Road.
That connection is about to grow even stronger, with Harpoon opening a beer garden later this month on Mercantile Plaza. The 225-seat downtown beer garden marks Harpoon’s first satellite location in the state (it has a second brewery and taproom in Windsor, Vermont).
Harpoon goes before the city’s License Commission on May 19 for its final approval. Because of other events slated on the plaza, the setup for the beer garden will not begin until at least May 23, with Harpoon targeting May 26 for the opening day.
Worcester played a prominent role in the earliest days of Harpoon’s history, from Kenary’s family roots, to Atlas Distributing Inc. serving as its first wholesaler. “Dan is thrilled this is happening,” said Charles Storey, president of Harpoon’s parent company, Mass. Bay Brewing Co. “I think if we had the bandwidth and were able to see the opportunity earlier, we would have done it. It all came together in a sort of serendipitous way starting this winter.”
Storey credited Charles “Chip” Norton at the Mercantile Center and Dusty Rhodes, president of the Boston marketing and events firm Conventures, for pitching the beer garden idea to Harpoon as another way to bring more vibrancy to downtown Worcester.
“That’s Harpoon’s DNA,” he said. “Breweries should be parts of their communities; they should be engaged with their neighborhoods and an asset to the folks around them.”
Harpoon has tapped three restaurant owners with deep ties to the craft beer industry to operate the beer garden: Josh Briggs, Shawn Briggs and Sargon Hanna. “They understand that the most important thing about beer is it’s fun,” Storey said of the three Grafton entrepreneurs.
The Briggs brothers and Hanna opened their restaurant, Reunion Tap & Table, in their hometown in 2018. Josh Briggs and Shawn Briggs also own Wicked Twisted Pretzels, a Bavarian-style pretzel company in Grafton.
Josh Briggs has worked alongside Harpoon for more than two decades, dating back to when he played in a ‘90s alt-rock band with its former head brewer, Todd Charbonneau. “We’re ecstatic,” he said of the opportunity to build a beer garden with Harpoon. “We love Reunion, but myself and my partners, we’re entrepreneurial spirits, and restaurant work does tend to have a day-to-day grind to it. It’s different from building a new thing. Worcester has always been great to us, through our artistic endeavors, our professional endeavors, so to get down there and do our thing right there in the heart of it really has me amped up.”
Set in the plaza between the Mercantile Center and the parking garage, the Harpoon Worcester Beer Garden will have a shipping container-turned bar boasting five draft lines dedicated to Harpoon and three for other New England brews; Arctic Summer Hard Seltzer, WhistlePig PiggyBack Barrel Age Rye Smash canned cocktails, and wine will be available, too. Food options are limited to snacks, as Briggs said he does not want to disrupt business for the restaurants in the area. Cornhole tables will be set up atop turf toward the back of the plaza near Commercial Street. Briggs, a musician as well as a restauranteur, hopes to have a band or DJ performing whenever possible.
Add the Harpoon Worcester Beer Garden to the other new options for a night out in the downtown, and suddenly the heart of the city isn’t so sleepy.
“If I was young and had my weekend, or even if I wasn’t young, I would say, ‘Let’s go to Worcester, we’ll hit The Mercantile, we’ll hit Harpoon, we’ll head to over to the (Worcester) Beer Garden, and we’ll head over to Off the Rails, or vice versa,” Briggs said. “It’s just like you would do if you were going to see breweries.”
The Harpoon Worcester Beer Garden will be open 4 to 11 p.m. Thursday and Friday; noon to 12 a.m. Saturday; and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday.
For updates on its opening day, go to facebook.com/harpoonworcester
