July 24, 2015
Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice
People walk along Haddon Avenue in downtown Collingswood.
There are wet towns, like Atlantic City, where bars need never close.
Dry towns, too, such as Ocean City, where you can’t even bring your own beverage to a restaurant.
Then there is Collingswood: a moist town. No bars or liquor stores permitted, but there’s plenty of alcohol.
BYOB is a traditional part of Collingswood’s restaurant scene, the backbone of the borough’s business district. Every evening at supper time, patrons parade along Haddon Avenue, wine bottles or six-packs in hand.
Several restaurants began selling the products of New Jersey wineries in the spring of 2014, a special exemption from local dry-law prohibitions designed to promote the state’s more than 40 commercial winemakers.
The reaction to selling wine was negligible, perhaps paving the way for the acceptance of microbreweries.
“The effect was marginal,” says Lydia Cipriani, co-owner of Tortilla Press, a casual Mexican-influenced restaurant offering wine where her husband, Mark Smith, is the chef.
“It really has had no impact on the BYOB tradition," she says. "Our patrons still almost always bring their own wine. Being able to sell Sharrott Winery’s bottles and half bottles is a nice thing to offer, but not very profitable.”
Following a bit of hand-wringing among established restaurateurs, including Cipriani and political leaders — Collingswood earlier this year outlawed microbreweries in the borough despite a 2012 state law that allows them — there may even be microbrewers downtown soon.
Meant as temporary, more moratorium than prohibition, the brewery ban is about to be lifted, with the caveat that craft brewers may operate only in certain parts of the city and breweries cannot serve their own food.
Cass Duffey, Collingswood’s director of community development, said: “This is a new game for us,” designed as a “complement, not competition” to existing restaurants.
An application could get turned in as soon as Aug. 4, says Duffey, a self-described fan of craft beer.
Given the need for securing a property, outfitting it and getting lots of approvals, she says a microbrewery realistically would likely open in 2016.
Meanwhile, Collingswood’s decision to delay has had an unintended consequence.
“Eli hit our definition of artisan .... We hope he’ll be a catalyst for change." – Robert Forbes, Oaklyn mayor
Eli Facchinei, one of the would-be brewers who approached Collingswood, is moving ahead in Oaklyn, a tiny nearby borough that sends its student to Collingswood’s high school.
Facchinei, 29, an Atco native who lives in Collingswood, learned to appreciate beer when he had a German roommate in college and visited that country. Unable to find the quality of beer he’d learned to love, he became a home brewer.
But he learned the craft on an industrial scale in Colorado, where he and longtime girlfriend, occupational therapist Katie Labine, lived while he pursued his passion for skiing.
Facchinei started volunteering on the canning line at Telluride Brewing Co., paid for his time in beer. When the award-winning brewery expanded, he got hired, eventually becoming a brewer.
He likes working with his hands and science, and for him, craft brewing is “like a science project you can drink and enjoy.”
And while there is some cross-over between home brewing and commercial craft brewing, “it was a whole different animal,” he said, because consistency matters in commercial craft brewing.
The couple moved back to South Jersey about a year ago and Facchinei started exploring opening a microbrewery.
When Collingswood’s “options did not play out in my favor,” the mayor of Oaklyn, Robert Forbes, reached out to Facchinei and invited him to take a look at a small industrial space in Oaklyn’s one-block downtown.
“All the pieces came together,” says Facchinei.
Forbes, a lifelong Oaklyn resident, already had a plan in place, having overhauled downtown zoning a year ago to favor artisans and crafts people.
“Eli hit our definition of artisan,” says Forbes, an architect who, with his wife, owns a coffee shop in the downtown.
The brewery’s landlord, Bill Kendzierski, a painter, photographer and sculptor himself, already has a photography and a theater company in the adjoining part of the building. “This will absolutely bring people in from out of town.”
“We hope he’ll be a catalyst for change,” says Forbes, of building foot-traffic in the tiny downtown, especially in summer months when school is out and there are fewer customers on Clinton Avenue.
There’s a bit of rivalry between the boroughs of Oaklyn and Collingswood, with Oaklyn smaller, less affluent and scrappier than its sometimes overly precious neighbor.
“The saying is ‘Collingswood, where you want to be. Oaklyn, right next to where you want to be,'” Forbes laughs.
He hopes to leverage more redevelopment for Oaklyn if Facchinei’s Tonewood Brewery takes off.
Duffey, Collingswood’s development director, credits Facchinei with helping to educate her town’s leaders about the aims and needs of craft breweries.
She says several other people have expressed an interest in developing small 1,500 square-foot storefront craft breweries that could help draw people to town, which only sees light foot-traffic outside meal times.
Facchinei, meanwhile, is moving ahead with outfitting his Oaklyn space with the help of his brother, Taylor, and their parents.
The property is twice as large as a typical Collingswood storefront, allowing Tonewood to have eight to 14 beers on tap, including specialties such as extremely seasonal sour fruit beers.
Samples, pints, cans and growlers will be available, he says. He plans to start with an India pale ale — the most popular craft-style — available by March 2016, and then add new products.
Facchinei is looking to partner with local groups — he especially likes biking groups — and businesses to promote his brewery as a destination. He also wants his brews to act as a “value-added product” for nearby restaurants and bars.
John Farkas, owner of the venerable Oaklyn Manor Bar, just a block from the proposed brewery on Clinton, doesn’t see Tonewood as a competitor: he’s looking forward to selling beer made down the street.
Full disclosure: U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, who sponsored the aforementioned 2012 legislation to modernize New Jersey's craft beer laws as a state senator, is the uncle of PhillyVoice.com Managing Director Lexie Norcross.
