We recently connected with Kevin Hamilton and have shared our conversation below.

Kevin, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Right out of high school I moved to Europe and immediately fell in love. The overall sense of community and attention towards quality-of-life resonated with me.. I spent my time equally between hiking and exploring and hanging out at Biergartens. I was taken aback by these “businesses” that seemed to thrive on creating a comfortable space for the local community to meet and where everyone is able to enjoy the space in their own way. I didn’t have kids yet but it was obvious that Europe had figured it out – a space where kids, adults, families, teenagers, could all enjoy the same space and seemingly have a great time together. This was a stark contrast to what I had grown up with – the adults-only bar or Chucky Cheese, with no option that bridged the gap. Certainly beer was present but it wasn’t really the purpose of the biergarten, it was simply a commonality that gave guests a reason to go and something to do while kids played and friends and family conversed. I had always thought that this model of creating a community space would work well in the states and it was certainly an underserved market but as a 17 year old, I didn’t have the understanding of how to make it a reality. Then I read “The Great Good Place” by Ray Oldenburg and realized there was a name for this, “The Third Place”. With your home being the first, your work being your second (sadly) most strong communities had a Third Place where, as the book states “people meet as equals and conversation is the main activity”. I loved this idea and it made perfect sense. I was forever smitten with this concept of creating the Third Place for a community. I also loved the simplicity of these venues. It was never a fancy space with elaborate design and marketing yet, they were the most welcoming and aesthetically pleasing spaces I could imagine. Maybe it was my preference but it seemed like they took a naturally beautiful area like a grove of trees, set up some picnic tables and some beer taps and hung some lights. And that was it. Of course, there was much more to it but the effortless beauty of the spaces invited relaxation. It was like you were just enjoying a beer with your friend in the backyard, but a backyard with food and beer service.

Throughout the years there was college, grad school, many jobs and other businesses and then came a family of my own. “Why is it that I can’t find a place to relax and have a beer while my kids enjoy their own experience?” And then the planets aligned. I had bought a business that I ran for 8 years but wasn’t particularly engaged and certainly not passionate about it, I made good money but that was about it. I felt that owning your own business should be the pinnacle of creativity and freedom, yet I didn’t have either of those, and I didn’t feel that I was working towards something greater. I received an offer to sell my business and I took it. It provided me enough runway to create something that I had dreamt about and build the business I truly wanted to operate…a biergarten.

I live in a small community and like many of my friends with small children, wished there was a space where we could go and enjoy ourselves without confining a child to a stuffy chair and telling them not to throw french fries all evening. The idea for Canyon Club Brewery had been in my head for over 20 years but I had finally matched my desire with a community that needed it. My community thrives on interaction and is largely focused on kids. Ask anyone what they did over the weekend and you’re likely to hear about endless soccer games followed by a swim meet and maybe a quick dinner somewhere just to feed starving children. Build a place where mom and dad can enjoy an adult beverage where the kids want to go and where they can be..well, kids.

The concept for Canyon Club Brewery came from this need. Build a space that becomes the “Third Place” for the community. Everyone is welcome and it’s simply “the place you go” after a long day or for a meeting or date, or if you just want to get away from the 1st and 2nd place. Our plan was to not only build a beautiful outdoor biergarten but brew really good beer and serve great food to go with it. We do make award winning beer and I think our fish and chips are the best I’ve had on the West coast but that’s just a bonus to what we provide – a beautiful space to relax and meet with friends and family. As part of becoming the Third Place, we focused our marketing efforts on simply supporting the community. If the local school needs beer for a fundraiser, we’re there. If a local non-profit needs to host a fundraiser, we’ve got the place. And the community has supported us in return, just as much as we have supported them. We truly feel like we are an integral part of the community…and we make really good beer.

Part of creating a Third Place is designing a space where people just want to be. I get overly excited about designing fire pits and seating areas – places where I would want to hang out. Along with this comes the freedom to create designs with few rules. A brewery is supposed to be quirky and in many ways, it’s supposed to look like a factory. We took the same concept of using a naturally beautiful space and simply making it hospitable for guests. The floors are still raw concrete and the furniture is made from an old horse stable but if executed in a beautiful way, it adds to the relaxation and makes guests feel more comfortable.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have been in the restaurant industry most of my life in every capacity from a busboy to owner and everything in between. My first job was in a restaurant and I immediately loved it. Yes, it’s long hours and hard work and serving the public can be challenging but for those who love the excitement and the pace, there’s nothing more rewarding. Throughout the years I’ve worked in many types of venues – restaurants, bars, hotels, and country clubs. I used to think of it as a great job but not necessarily a careen choice. I put myself through college through bartending and eventually, graduate school. I started working in industries that made career sense on paper but always kept a toe in the hospitality industry through investing and consulting. At some point in my career I realized that I was working to make money and money only, I didn’t have the excitement of showing up to work on a busy Saturday or the pleasure in knowing that I helped provide someone with the best birthday dinner they’ve ever had. I had to figure out a way to work in the industry that I was truly born to work in but also provide for my family.

Enter Canyon Club Brewery. a family-friendly craft brewery and restaurant. My main role here is keep all the plates spinning. Somedays I’m negotiating leases and the next, I’m helping brew beer. I run the finances but sometimes need to drive a forklift or fix a fence and I love it. Some of my proudest moments are walking through the biergarten on a warm Friday night and seeing kids running around and families enjoying dinner together while listening to live music. Yes, we make award-wining beer and incredible food but what we truly do is create a space for these experiences and we do it really well. I don’t hire staff based on experience, I hire based on personality. We can teach anyone to pour a beer but you can’t teach staff to “want” to help guests or to anticipate their needs. This leads us to what we do best and that is provide hospitality. Breweries are a large part of the hospitality industry but so many of us just brew beer and don’t put a lot of thought into the rest of the experience. At Canyon Club e try to create the perfect experience through not only our beer, but our food, our music, the setting and of course, our hospitality.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Canyon Club Brewery opened in late 2019, just months before the pandemic began. It was gut-wrenching to work on something for years only to have it shut down months after opening through no fault of our own. We knew many restaurants that were either calling it quits or just closing until further notice but that wasn’t us. We had worked too hard and we knew there was a way to survive. We kept our salaried staff and told them to show up in the morning just as you normally would. We will come up with a full day of work work no matter the task. For the first few months we focused on repairing furniture and building improvements like an outdoor bar and a new stage. These were small projects that really just needed time and effort as opposed to expensive materials. Time and effort were things we had, so we kept everyone paid and busy and waited for the day when we could reopen. Soon, we realized we had longer to wait than we previously thought so we asked ourselves how we could make some revenue while also helping out those in need. You’ll remember there was a time you couldn’t get yeast or toilet paper, but we could so we opened up a small bodega. Soon customers were coming for toilet paper and buying a 4-pack of beer while they were there. Then you couldn’t get aluminum cans so we started filling mason jars with beer. We simply would not take no for an answer and figured out a work-around for almost every issue. We expanded the bodega to provide fresh baked bread from a local bakery that couldn’t open. We used our tanks to produce hand sanitizer and sewed handmade masks when they became scarce. We were making enough money to keep everyone working and we were staying busy and even improving the business.

As the pandemic continued we were able to open for to-go food so we started selling pre-made family dinners, complete with beer and a bottle of wine – they were a hit. We even served fried crickets “Chapulines” just so families could still have the adventure of going out to eat. The community responded in spades, stating “they just got us and they can’t lose us”.

Eventually, we were allowed to open for outside dining and then social distance dining but the truth is, we never closed, not even for one day. I remember speaking with someone and saying “in a way, the pandemic has forced us to look at our business every day and pivot to what is working and what we can do to improve”. I’ll never forget his response: “that’s just running a business”. And that’s what we learned from a long two years of pivoting almost every day. There is always a way, you just need to look at your business objectively and be creative.

Can you talk to us about your experience with buying businesses?

Early in my consulting career I was tasked with streamlining a business and preparing it for sale. It was a real estate business and during the process, the 2007/2008 real estate crash happened. I had to tell these owners that their business was essentially worth zero at this point. The owners asked if I would like to purchase it and I did. I was intricately knowledgeable about the business operations but I didn’t know much about selling real estate. I knew that this company has great assets, including market share, a brand name and decent revenue. What they didn’t have in place were budgets, goals or an actionable business plan. These were all items I knew how to do very well and things that I knew would have a large impact on the bottom line. I enlisted a partner who did know real estate and we closed the deal in less than 6 months. Because we didn’t have a lot of capital upfront, the retiring owners agreed to a structured payout based on a share of revenue.

The short version is that we were able to turn this business around and the real estate market eventually rebounded. But before selling it, it was clear that in our rush to close the transaction, I didn’t ask the right questions of my partner before jumping into the purchase. A business partnership is like a marriage and there are deal breaking questions that you should ask like – do you want kids, how many? Where do you want to settle down and buy a home? A business partnership is no different. What is our growth strategy? What are the expectations for each partner’s role? What is the exit strategy if one partner wants to move on? I did not vet these well enough and they strained the working relationship throughout the years. It eventually got to a point where we needed to sell the business because our ideas of how to run it long-term were too divergent. While I was able to sell the business, it was a very stressful and contentious process due to the fact that we did not have protocols in place. Issues like how to value the business, first right of refusal for offers or who pays the attorney fees were never addressed until a lot of money was at stake. In the end, I learned more in those eight years ow ownership than I did from all my schooling combined. Some things I just needed to learn the hard way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://canyonclub.getbento.com/home/
• Instagram: @canyonclubbrewery, @canyonclubdanville
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/public-profile/settings?trk=d_flagship3_profile_self_view_public_profile