Archive: Around Town

Salt Point Brewing Company is only two years old, yet it has managed to become a popular Lansing hot spot.  Almost immediately the brewery out-grew its location next door to the Rogue's Harbor Inn, and is in the process of building a new brewery/restaurant across the street from the town ball fields.  This Wednesday (May 20th) owners Chris and Sarah Hesse and Camilo Bohorquez will be hosting what they hope will be their first Community Meals Initiative event.  Sarah Hesse says the brewery will be distributing 300 free meals to people in need at the Barbecue Pavilion in front of the Lansing Town Hall.

"It could be anyone that doesn't have a takeout meal in their budget," she says. "We serve an incredible community here and we've been just completely overwhelmed by the love and support from our customers. I've just been really inspired by the outpouring of support that our customers are providing for us. They are literally keeping our lights on at this point.  As we're serving these meals and having these huge food events, we're thinking about the people in our community who don't have the extra room in their budget to be able to get take out. We want to be able to share our appreciation of the community with them as well."

The meal is going to be a smoked pork shoulder, with mac and cheese and coleslaw.  Hesse says she included mac and cheese because some children might not like pork shoulder, but most love mac and cheese.  Conforming to current lock-down rules, the meal is take-out only.  People will drive up to the pavilion and tell attendants how many meals they want, then will be handed their meals.  The meals will be available on a first come, first served basis until they run out.  Hess says the event will run from 5:00pm to 6:30pm to accommodate people who work during normal business hours.

"We'll have everything, pre-boxed up and ready to go up there with, as many people as we can safely have in that location," she says. "It'll just be ready to go right out the door."

The brewery is run by the three owners with two on-site employees and a third who provides online and tech support. Hess says the employees volunteered to man the Community Meals event, but she wants to pay them.

After receiving a generous contribution from a donor for Wednesday's meal, Hess decided to accept contributions for future free meal events.

"My hope is that we can continue to do them at maybe monthly. Depending on how much community interest and support we receive, we'll adjust accordingly. But one thing I want to be clear about is that anybody that donates to our initiatives should know that all of that money is going to go directly to the cost of putting on this event or a future event like this. None of the money is going to go into the proceeds of Salt Point Brewing Company."

Despite the coronavirus restrictions, construction on the new brewery/restaurant is progressing more or less on schedule.  Hesse says they hope to open in the new building some time this fall.

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