New alcohol licenses were approved for two Warsaw businesses Thursday by the Alcohol Tobacco Commission of Kosciusko County.
A beer, wine and liquor riverfront district license was greenlit for Railties LLC, doing business as Rocksteady Pizza Parlour, 108 E. Market St., Warsaw.
The other new application was for a beer, wine and liquor catering hall license as requested by Heritage House Enterprises LLC, doing business as The Barn 1880, 2076 N. CR 100E, Warsaw.
The local commission is just a recommending body to the state, who will have to give final approval for both licenses. The state board meets on the first and third Tuesday of every month.
There were no remonstrators to either petition at Thursday’s meeting.
Rocksteady owners Jason Brown and Joel Squires went before the ATC Thursday for their alcohol license request.
“So we’re looking for the riverfront license so we can start serving some drinks at our restaurant. We’re looking to mainly do family-style service at the tables, we’re not really looking to have an actual bar. We’ll walk everything to the tables. We’re looking to keep it pretty simple - beer and wine and a few cocktails on the menu,” Squires said.
Brown said they were “staying true to all of our brands that we’ve been a part of. We are not drink-first facilities. We are food and experience-first facilities that happen to service alcoholic beverages.”
He said the one difference between Rocksteady and One-Ten Craft Meatery is that One-Ten is a physical bar where they serve over the bar top, whereas at Rocksteady there will be a bar service station and all the drinks will be carried to the patrons. There won’t be a physical serviceable bar at Rocksteady.
Brown said eventually they will probably work their way into patio seating at some capacity. “We don’t know for sure, but at that point we’ll ask for an adjustment on the property layout. We have not requested that as of yet,” he said.
The city of Warsaw recently made an amendment to its outdoor patio seating rules, he said, but they weren’t sure if they were going to have patio seating anyway at this point. The rule is in regards to businesses clearing their outdoor furniture off sidewalks during inclement weather so the city can clean snow and ice off the sidewalks.
Excise officer and Commission member April Tackett asked Brown and Squires if they were familiar with “temporarily” amending their floor plans.
When Brown said no, Tackett explained, “Let’s pretend that you don’t put a patio on your floor plan, but there’s a special weekend - car show, whatever - you can temporarily amend your floor plan, so as long as you are allowed to by the city, as long you roped off the front area where you wouldn’t let people walk away with drinks, you can temporarily do that for a weekend. Because before you couldn’t take up and take down that wheel or whatever, but with that temporary thing you could.”
To do the temporary amendment, she said they would just need to email the excise office with a handwritten floor plan change. There’s no extra fee, but it’s just temporary for special events.
Recently, the Warsaw Common Council approved the downtown Warsaw Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area (DORA). Asked how the DORA would come into play with the temporary floor amendment, Tackett said, “If there’s a DORA, like whatever rules you want to go by - if you want to go by the DORA rules or do you want to go by the amendment rules.”
With a DORA, Tackett said “there would be no reason to have a front patio because you can do it underneath the DORA umbrella, and you don’t have to have ropes around it if you have a DORA.”
She also told everyone that as of July, “You are allowed to have a bar on a patio, whereas you didn’t used to be able to do that. So that would require just a new floor plan showing the little boxed-out area where it’s a bar. That’s new.”
Rocksteady has been opened since mid-December.
The ATC unanimously approved the new license for the Market Street business.
Speaking for The Barn 1880’s license application was owner Jonathon Scroggs. He said the catering hall will be for private events such as weddings.
“The permit is to allow us to host weddings and different events that people would like to rent for charities or whatever events they would like to use the space for,” he said. “And then we get catering companies (for food) in and that pretty much sums it up.”
The capacity for the upstairs of the barn is 237 and downstairs is 137, Scroggs replied when ATC President Elim Smith asked about it.
Commission member Dan Woods asked if they would furnish all alcohol for the events. Scroggs said yes.
Looking at the floor plan, Tackett asked about an area that was labeled “roped-off area beer garden” and another that was labeled “enclosed garden.”
Scroggs explained, “The downstairs, if we have a patio, we rope that area off so it’s separated from the parking area.” He said the outside patio would still be attached to the building and people would be able to access it from the building.
“The enclosed garden has a wall around it already, and it is a stone wall that (has) an entrance from the building,” he said.
The Scroggs’ current residence is a house on the same property. Tackett said with the catering hall, “You understand that you’re not allowed to have your property on the floor plan? It’s just what’s under the roof of the building and attached. So you couldn’t throw a party at the house, unless you would cater it.”
He said he understood.
License renewals without any violations approved by the board included:
• F.C. Horse Inc., dba Leesburg Liquors, 406 S. Main St., Leesburg, beer, wine and liquor package store license.
• HMR Acquisition Co. Inc., dba Hacienda Mexican Restaurant, 3805 Lake City Hwy., Warsaw, beer, wine and liquor restaurant license.
• Speedway LLC, dba Speedway #6078, 823 E. Winona Ave., Warsaw, beer and wine dealer grocery store license.
• Flume LLC, dba Rua, Warsaw, beer, wine and liquor restaurant license. The license is in escrow.
• Freeland Enterprises Inc., dba Pizza Hut, 1112 S. Huntington Road, Syracuse, beer, wine and liquor riverfront district license.
• Patino’s Mexican Grill LLC, dba Patino’s, 918 N. Detroit St., Warsaw, beer and wine retailer restaurant license.
• Leesburg Petro Corp., dba Leesburg Stop N Go, 100 N. Main St., Leesburg, beer and wine dealer grocery store license.
• 309 Main LLC, dba Steuby’s LLC, 309 S. Main St., Leesburg, beer, wine and liquor restaurant license.