Area revitalizing continues down the 32nd Street corridor with a new ale house, bottle shop and smoke kitchen opening on the NWC of 32nd Street and Cactus. Lovecraft will open this month offering 25 taps of craft beer, wine and cider, along with a 2-go bottle shop and smoked kitchen.
Rebecca Golden, former owner of 32 Shea, and her partner Ryan Castillo couldn’t wait to get back into the “neighBEERhood”, but this time with hopes of revitalizing another great intersection along the 32nd Street corridor. “We love this brick building (formerly the Smoke House Grill) and could see great potential here”, says Golden. We realize it hasn’t been successful in quite some time, so we put a lot of thought about what it needed. First thing on the list was a facelift. Removing the arches and modernizing the front not only shows the community there is change going on, it also encourages neighboring businesses to do the same. There are so many great neighborhoods in this area with so little choices, so we wanted to give the community a gathering place where they can hang out, play some ping-pong, watch sporting events and enjoy great food and drinks.”
As far as the menu, “I was born and raised in New Mexico and I cannot deny that influence in everything I do, like eating everything with fresh jalapeños. It made sense to make a menu I’d love by combining two great cuisines, slow-cooked smoked meats (since we inherited the smoker from the last joint) and amazing New Mexico cuisine,” stated Golden. “After all, when you eat something spicy you need to wash it down with something and what’s better than delicious craft beer?” Though, Golden did hesitate to call Lovecraft a restaurant, “We really are a craft beer bar that serves food, rather than a full restaurant. This will give us flexibility to grow the menu slowly without all the expectations that come with restaurant life.”
Lovecraft plans on having weekly events that support the community such as open-mic night, live local bands, ping pong tournaments, craft art nights hosted by their neighbors Craft Nights, pop-up dinners with local Chefs, community bingo and events sponsoring local breweries.
One thing Golden was adamant about was the need to support all local businesses. “When people put their lives on the line to open a business, they need community support. After all, if we do good the neighborhood does good and property values increase. Look at what Postino’s did for Arcadia! Small businesses don’t have the resources like franchises do, so setting expectations that things will be perfect is extremely hard for a small business to accomplish. We don’t have executive boards and investors to run our ideas through, we make the best decisions with the resources we have. With that said, if there is an issue talk to the owner or manager before you go to Yelp or review sites. I know I’d prefer to hear it in-person or get an email first before reading it online.”
