New Distillery Blending Right In With Downtown Crowd

This is a different .

The former one took up more than 8,000 square feet on 44^th Avenue East, had live music almost every night, including a lot of hard rock bands, and at times could get a bit wild. The new Distillery is roughly a quarter of the size of the original, and the days a full-fledged rock band plays to the Distillery crowd are over. There’s not enough space.

But what it lost in real estate with the move it gained in style and comfort. It fits the mold of the traditional neighborhood pub where a more manageable crowd can get together and chat without screaming over blaring music.

“It’s definitely a little bit more quaint,” said owner Paul Kotlarczyk. “Some of our old crowd followed us here, but it’s a different exposure downtown. We see a lot of people start out the night here, go someplace else then come back at the end of the night. People are bar hopping so it’s more of a revolving crowd.”

Located at 450 Old Main Street inside the beautiful Don Hall building, it brings another welcome addition to the downtown strip: a kitchen that serves brick oven pizza slices until closing time at 2:30 a.m. One slice is about the size of two slices from most restaurants and at $3 each it’s the best deal downtown, especially when there aren’t any other eating options on Old Main Street as the midnight hour approaches.

Known for its excellent beer selection when it was on 44^th Avenue East, the new Distillery doesn’t disappoint. Guinness, Magic Hat, Yuengling, Blue Moon, Stella Artois and Woodchuck Amber are among the brews available on tap. Dead Guy Ale, Dos Equis, Red Stripe, Becks, Bass and flavored Smirnoffs are a few of the bottled drinks. The bar has more than 50 beer selections. Liquor selections run the gamut from top to bottom shelf selections and bottles of wine range from $15 to $60.

It has some other nice features, including five flat-screen televisions behind the bar and three, small personal sets in the booths opposite the bar counter, video golf, a cigarette machine, cash machine, video trivia, electrical sockets under the bar counter (very helpful for laptop users or someone with a dying cell phone) and hooks under the bar counter where ladies can hang their purses.

The sluggish economy prompted the move to a smaller building. The new Distillery opened in September, almost two months after the original locations closed, but that left staff without a job for two months. Kotlarczyk said it was important to open as soon as possible to get everyone back to work. The bar remains a work in progress but it hasn’t had any trouble attracting patrons during its first three months on Old Main Street.

“Sales are doing well and we’re always getting good reviews on the pizza,” he said. “It’s going well.”

The Distillery is open from 2 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. seven days a week.

Around Bradenton this weekend:

• Happy hour , 6006 Manatee Ave. W., is daily from 7-11 a.m. with $2 pints, $2.50 wells and $2 Bloody Marys. There’s another happy hour for the later crowd from 4-6 p.m. Same good deals just minus the Bloody Marys.
• , 2604 Manatee Ave. E., has its weekly Lingerie Football League starting at 10 p.m. Friday. It’s also the Bradenton home of flip cup! Last Call doesn’t serve liquor but it has plenty of beer – domestics, Magic Hat No. 9, Guinness from the can, Woodchuck Cider and more – and wine for $3 a glass.
• Live music at , 4343 Palma Sola Blvd., Friday and Saturday night. No cover for either performance. At 9 p.m. Friday it’s local band Whiskey Blind which plays a mix of 1960s through current light and heavy music genres. Country/rockabilly band Gypsy Hyway takes the stage at 9 p.m. Saturday.
• , 420 301 Blvd. E., is celebrating its monthly bar party this Saturday. Free food courtesy of the Dorics family, the longtime owners of Hi-Way Bar, and side dishes from its patrons. Food comes out around 5 p.m. Karaoke starts at 6 p.m. Cold beers for sale all day.