This sketch shows one plan to put seating behind One Barrel Brewing. To avoid right-of-way issues, seating was shifted to the back lot-line-parking area, but more impediments to approval were discovered.
This is no time to discover your application to open an outdoor serving space at your brewpub is caught between a rock and a hard place — or that is, between Wisconsin’s three-tiered alcohol licensing law and the city of Madison’s zoning ordinances. But that’s where One Barrel Brewing’s Peter Gentry finds himself in his attempt to create a patio behind One Barrel, 2001 Atwood Ave., before the chill of winter sets in.
“I’ve made no money at this location for six months,” says Gentry. “I need to generate some income to pay the rent or I’ll have to close.”
One Barrel, located in Schenk’s Corners exactly where Winnebago Street meets Atwood, has no room for sidewalk seating in the front of the business. Earlier this summer, Gentry approached the city via its Streatery program to see if he could use the space behind 1941 Winnebago St. (previously a frame shop, now empty). “It’s a vacant parking lot, a nice private space,” says Gentry. But, because it is not directly adjacent to One Barrel, it is not eligible under the rules of the Streatery program.
Gentry then suggested space just out the back door of One Barrel, but its status as a right-of-way nixed that. The space Gentry is currently proposing is also behind the building: a parking area next to the back lot line (to the rear of where Tex Tubb’s has already established its outdoor patio seating). The space is approximately 20’x40’ and can fit up to 48 socially distanced customers.
That would be allowed under the terms of the Streatery program, but because it is private property and not city property, it also needs to be cleared through city zoning. That’s where Wisconsin’s liquor licensing law and city ordinances met up.
In short: One Barrel was originally classified as a brewpub with the city when it opened in 2012. When Gentry opened a second location in Door County in 2019, he says, the state required him to reclassify the business as a brewery, not a brewpub, because all beers served at a brewpub need to be made onsite, according to Wisconsin law, and that was no longer true for One Barrel. Side note: To gain the brewery classification, Gentry had to give up the class B liquor license for the Atwood location.
The brewery classification, however, does not conform to city zoning at the Atwood Avenue location — Schenk’s Corners is zoned commercial; a brewery would have to be located in a manufacturing zone. That’s why the brewpub classification was adopted when One Barrel opened in 2012. “I was following the rules at one point in time,” says Gentry, “and I haven’t changed anything.”
The catch-22 wasn’t discovered until Gentry started asking about creating the outdoor space. Technically, the Atwood site is not in compliance with the city and can’t be operating at all.
One Barrel needs to be reclassified as a tasting room, says city zoning administrator Matt Tucker, before it can do anything, including open an outdoor patio space. “A tasting room is an allowed use in a shopping area,” says Tucker. But reclassification requires a conditional use approval from the city planning commission. And that, despite the city’s original intent to streamline various approval processes with the Streatery program, requires a 30-day noticing period with the alder and the neighborhood, says Tucker, even before filing the official papers and heading to the planning commission.
The alder can waive that noticing period, and Tucker notes that because One Barrel is an established business that’s “beloved in the neighborhood,” that could likely happen — but the process still could be compressed only somewhat. Paperwork would be due today for the issue to come up before the planning commision meeting on Oct. 19 — or possibly rushed to a meeting on Oct. 5 “if everything went okay” says Tucker. “It’s rare that we do that, but if there were ever one [case] that could be a waiver, it might be this one.”
But Gentry — who says he started this process a month ago and initially wanted the patio to be open by Labor Day weekend — says he can’t wait even that long. “The window for operating before cold weather sets in is getting shorter and shorter,” Gentry says.“It wouldn’t make sense to open at 25% capacity. It’s a small space. What customer is going to want to come and sit in a small area with few people?” The Atwood location is currently open limited hours for to-go sales only.
Peter Gentry
Still, Gentry says he is “luckier than many. I still make money in Door County and with wholesale. I just can’t pay the rent here.”
Gentry wonders why, with all the hurdles business owners are facing, the city couldn’t let him continue to operate as he has since 2012, while the paperwork goes through. He wishes that the city would look at the “commonsense intent of the law, and not the letter of the law.”
Tucker takes issue with Gentry’s assertion that nothing at One Barrel has changed, saying that food is no longer served, which was part of the city’s original approval, and that with no class B liquor license, it no longer meets the definition of a brewpub — its original classification. (The tasting room classification did not come into existence until 2013.)
Gentry says that One Barrel would “still be serving food under normal operations,” and that the bar snacks and pizzas they do serve don’t make sense with takeout beer sales. “We would again serve Fraboni’s pizza if we were allowed to open this patio.”
Tucker elaborates on the city’s position: “Our office will not knowingly approve an application for Streatery with a use that is not compliant with the zoning ordinance and as referenced in the temporary order,” he says. “There are times when we find out about illegal uses, [and] we require them to apply for conditional use approval, and we take no enforcement action to fine them for ongoing violations, so long as they apply and are going through the approval process. This is not the case [here]. He is asking us to approve something that will expand a known illegal use.”
Tucker also points to a bigger issue, for Gentry, the Streatery program and all Madison restaurants and bars: “We’re running up against winter.” Even if the city extends the Streatery program beyond its original end date of Oct. 25, at a certain point eating outdoors is “just not going to work,” says Tucker. Even if restaurants start adding tents with sides, and heaters, that brings up the need for additional approvals from the fire department. And restaurants using parking spaces for outdoor seating will run into trouble from city snow removal crews, says Tucker: “How is it going to work?”
Tucker adds that the city has “relaxed enforcement on signage,” basically letting restaurants and bars mount illegal signs that announce they are open and to point to takeout and pickup sites, and that if COVID-19 case numbers don’t drop and interior seating capacity remains limited, that takeout will be the way restaurants will need to make it to spring: “I’m hoping for a mild winter.”
