Beer Can moving to Granite Curling Club

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This article was published 05/03/2021 (2015 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s a new plan for the Beer Can.

The pop-up outdoor beer garden on Main Street — a rare success story during the COVID-19 pandemic — is moving to the Granite Curling Club’s east parking lot this year.

The new spot is in close proximity to the Manitoba legislature, Osborne Street, Osborne Village and some of the city’s most densely populated neighbourhoods — a great location for attracting more walk-up customers, said owner Brad Chute.

Chute and his partner Neal McDonald are members at the Granite and saw how the club struggled during the pandemic. The city’s oldest and most famous curling club had to close this winter, owing to the province’s restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

It will lease the parking lot from the Granite, Chute said, adding the deal is pending as the Beer Can must obtain a temporary patio permit from the city as well as a liquor licence, among other governmental approvals.

“We’d always thought about moving there in the second year,” Chute said. “It made even more sense this year because the Granite is really struggling with COVID, they couldn’t get any curling in. Finding them a way to get them some money was important to Neal and I as well.”

The new location is slightly bigger than the Beer Can’s previous home on Main, Chute said, providing room for what he calls the Beer Cantina — a taqueria that would be a pop-up within a pop-up. It would use the nearby kitchen at the Granite club.

An opening date hasn’t been determined.

The Beer Can first opened in June 2020 at a vacant lot beside the Fortune Block on Main, near St. Mary Avenue. It proved to be a hotspot for Winnipeggers looking to enjoy locally brewed beer while complying with physical distancing rules brought on by the pandemic. Performers ranging from rock groups to Royal Winnipeg Ballet dancers took to a stage built at the site.

Chute has had preliminary discussions with some performers, he said, but no one is ready to commit just yet.

“We’re hoping we’ll be able to have a lot of live music again, but it’s a mixed bag,” Chute said. “If we are able to have a lot of live music that’s kind of bad for musicians in a way because that means they won’t be touring, they won’t be at festivals and doing their normal stuff.”

Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club announced in February it plans to take over the old Beer Can location, naming it Times Change(d) Outside.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca Twitter:@AlanDSmall