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Made In Walker
The Made In Walker Podcast connects you to the people, stories, and ideas shaping our community. From local innovators to everyday change makers, we are diving deep into what makes Walker Michigan a great place to live, work, and grow.
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Made In Walker
Small Batch, Big Dreams: Lost Art Brewery's Journey From Home Brewing to Neighborhood Institution
Three friends turned their home brewing passion into a thriving community hub during one of the most challenging periods for small businesses in recent memory. When Lost Art Brewery opened its doors in July 2020 amid pandemic restrictions, founders Austin, Mike, and Brad couldn't have predicted that loyal customers would show up in snowmobile suits to drink beer on their outdoor patio during freezing Michigan winters. But this remarkable display of community support exemplifies why this Walker establishment continues to succeed while others struggle.
The brewery's name perfectly captures their philosophy: doing things "the hardest way possible" to achieve the best results. Unlike many businesses forced to compromise quality during tough economic times, Lost Art refuses to cut corners. "We never sit down and have decisions about how we can make this cheaper," explains one founder. "It's always how can we make this better?" This quality-first mindset extends from their brewing techniques to their ingredients and has fostered intense customer loyalty.
Starting from humble beginnings as home brewers experimenting in a four-season room, the team has created a neighborhood institution that feels like it belongs to the community rather than just serving it. Their recent expansion to include an indoor kitchen (replacing their food truck operation), creative small-batch brewing program featuring popular "ice cream beers," and commitment to customer feedback demonstrate why Lost Art continues to thrive. As one founder puts it: "If you make decisions based on taking care of your customers, they will take care of you in return." Visit them at 3393 Remembrance Road and discover why this brewery has become an essential part of Walker's identity. Have you experienced their small-batch creations yet?
Welcome to Made in Walker, a podcast that connects you to the people, the stories and the ideas shaping our community, from local innovators to everyday changemakers. We're diving deep into what makes Walker a great place to live, work and grow. Here's your host, nicole DiDonato.
Speaker 2:We've been hearing it for years now. It's a tough economic times, especially for restaurants, and we know that several of them have actually closed in recent weeks. But there is one here in Walker that seems to have found the secret sauce, and I'm here with Austin, mike and Brad from Lost Art Brewery. Thank you all so much for joining us. We really do appreciate it. Thanks for having us, of course.
Speaker 2:Thank you, yes, and so, first of all, it's not like you guys aren't used to adversity. You actually opened Lost Art Brewery during the pandemic. What was that like? What were you guys thinking as you were going through this?
Speaker 4:Well, we didn't really have a choice, so it definitely wasn't planned that way. It took about two years from start to finish, in terms of just opening it in 2020. So it kind of was what it was.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, opening in July of 2020. What was the ribbon cutting? Take us back to that day.
Speaker 5:That was. It was pretty wonderful just to get to that. It felt like a finish line because we were supposed to open months before that, like March, april of 2020. And the you know, the contractors were all ordered off the job site and we couldn't get our inspections done. So we kind of just had to sit around and wait for the government to allow those people to come back. So just getting to that moment was just such a such a sigh of relief because you know the bank and everybody you know you still have to pay your bills and everything. So, like you want to start having money come into your business. So when we finally got to open and you know, see people come in and sell beer to the community, it was it was just like an amazing day to think back on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys are certainly no strangers to problem solving right To small business owners. That's probably something you do a lot, huh.
Speaker 5:Every day and every week, all day, every day.
Speaker 2:And what kind of inspired you guys to start a brewery? Because did you all have backgrounds, whether it was serving food or in the restaurant industry?
Speaker 4:None of us had brewery experience. Brad started home brewing. What year?
Speaker 5:It was about 10 years before the brewery opened. So it was back about 2010 that I started home brewing.
Speaker 4:So I was living in Chicago when the two of us started home brewing together. I would come back to Grand Rapids and we would homebrew out of his four season room and while we were brewing I would bring back beers from Chicago and we'd drink stuff from the East coast, west coast, and brew whatever delicious beer this guy concocted. And we were kind of wrapping back and forth like, oh, if we weren't doing the corporate thing we both were doing at the time, what would we do? And started tossing ideas around and everything led back to Brew Beer Awesome.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we had some crazy other ideas that I don't even want to get into but, it all kind of came back to that of just like, if you're going to do something, you have to do something that you're completely passionate about, right, like you want to wake up and do every day and you want to think about it at night and you want to be your family to be proud of, you to be proud of and, like Mike said, it just always led back to. You know, we're from the West side, we grew up over here, we wanted to have a business here and we were very passionate about beer and you know, it was still a point where people were very into craft beer. We felt like we had something to say, though that was different than everything else that was out there. So it wasn't like we were just trying to tag on to a movement. We felt like what we were doing was unique and special in its own way and we really wanted to harness that into the business.
Speaker 2:And you know, being able to open a brewery was it was awesome, oh my gosh and we'll get more into what you guys offer shortly, but the story behind the name as well. Lost Art.
Speaker 4:So I wish we had a better story for it. But the original name was 1983 Brewing Company, which is the year the two of us were born, and there was a restaurant group that already had that name. So we had to make an audible and we started asking friends and family if they had any other great ideas for for names. And my father-in-law came up with Lost Art, which really fell in line with the way we kind of look at brewing beer, which is kind of a lost art of doing things. So the way this guy goes at brewing beer every week is the proper way with the technique, European style of different styles. I guess I'll let him talk more about that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean they're. Like in any industry, it's very easy to cut corners for a multitude of reasons, whether it be a cost or ease or whatever. We always like to say that we do things the hardest way possible all the time, and that tends to lead to the best result. So we don't again, we don't cut corners anywhere. With everything we purchase, every process we use, everything we do in the brew house is all about quality. We never sit down and have decisions and like, how can we make this cheaper? It's always how can we make this better? Wow, you know so.
Speaker 2:And in a time where you, you know, do have to maybe crunch the numbers and cost crunch and all that, you still refuse to kind of give up on quality right.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean a lot of the business people that I look up to. I know we look up to don't make decisions that are always based on that bottom line. If you make a decision that's just about the bottom line, it tends to not work out well. But if you make decisions that are based on, you know, taking care of your customers and the people that come through the door, they're going to take care of you in return. It's kind of like a. It's a different kind of way of doing business, because some people might say it's not the smart way, but if you take care of your customers, they will take care of you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we're also lucky enough to um finance all of this ourselves, so we don't have a board or anything that we have to answer to um that are making decisions for you and forcing you to do things for the business that you know, don't actually pan out. So yeah, like we've seen some other.
Speaker 2:You know businesses have, so and you're mentioning about taking care of your customers and I know passing by every day, going to work and such, even into winter people when it was the pandemic still coming out. You had a lot of patio space. It could be the middle of winter, people were in their snowsuits and they were still sitting outside. What did that mean to you guys? To get that type of community support and just that, that show of unity and such?
Speaker 3:Very humbling yeah extremely humbling.
Speaker 4:It means a lot just growing up on the west side and it really shows true colors of the community and all that coming to support. So we've told the story before people showing up in snowmobile outfits and setting up shop hanging out outside in the freezing cold. We gave them a place to come and they chose our little humble patio when we had no tap room. You had no choice but to stand outside. So definitely humbling.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and it's not something we ever take for granted. We sat outside then and we'll go out there now, just on the weekend. And you sit there, you don't tell anybody who you are, you don't say, oh, I'm the owner of this establishment. You just sit down and you watch people enjoying themselves and being able to give the community a place to meet like that and enjoy things. It just fills your heart to a way that I can't even possibly explain or put into words right now. For you, it's awesome to see, especially, like Mike said, growing up here and having the community embrace us in this way. It's just so humbling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, smocker definitely is a special place and, um, we've seen you guys being able to expand as well, offering a new service. If you wanted to kind of talk about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, um, we have the kitchen indoors now. Um, we built out, you know, uh, figured it out in our tiny little building, a way to make it work, and it's great up and running now. Our grand opening was last Tuesday and we had specials and everything completely packed house every single night, so it was absolutely great. Yeah, we offer a line of chili dogs now with a homemade chili sauce. We hope to have different special events down the line, such as like special dinners, like ticketed events and everything too.
Speaker 3:But you know, there's never enough time in the day.
Speaker 2:You were the one that was running the food truck and the smash burgers and just kind of back and forth and back and forth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our employees are very thankful too, because there's not a lot of running back and forth now indoors. So you know, we have a climate controlled kitchen now instead of the freezing cold food truck in the wintertime.
Speaker 4:God bless our employees yeah. Did that in the summer and the winter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know, on top of like loyal customers, the loyal employees too that have been with you for so long.
Speaker 5:They're all amazing, everybody that like a lot of places, like to say, oh, we're a family here, but we really would go to bat for anybody that works for us and they're just such wonderful people. The energy they bring to work every day it's.
Speaker 2:It's an awesome place to be and what do you think that you've learned over the years? The last five years, I mean again opening up at an extremely difficult time and just with the way that the economy has been going the last five years, it seems like it never lets up. But you guys are still going at it and you're determined and you're succeeding.
Speaker 5:We really try to keep our heads down. I know a lot of businesses, you know. You come up and you kind of look around see what everybody else is doing, follow the leader, follow the crowd. But from the very beginning for us it was very much just focus on what you're doing, do it to the best of your ability and don't let all the noise around you get in the way. Like, just do what you're doing, the best you can, keeping it interesting too.
Speaker 3:You know, we're small batch breweries, so we're constantly coming out with new beers, um, coming out with new specials for food stuff like that, just so it's not always the same thing that people come in for, so yeah, yeah, your weekly beer releases and the ice cream beers.
Speaker 2:these look wild. They look so delicious. What are like the stories behind that? Where do you get your inspiration for some of these creations?
Speaker 4:honestly, a lot of them are on the fly with whether it's like a seasonal fruit or something like that, whatever we can get our hands on. And then, because we're so small, we do a small batch and not have to necessarily worry about screwing something up, which gives us more freedom of getting crazier, I guess, if you want to call it that. So that's kind of how those things happen we might do a pivot and come up with a completely different type of beer, which I think is an advantage for us versus another place that doesn't have that type of nimble movement.
Speaker 5:And you get such great direct feedback from the customers. We've done other things in the past that didn't work as much, but when the ice cream really started to take off you could talk directly to the customers and they tell you what they like, what they don't like, and then you know you can build products that are directly tailored to what people enjoy, you know. So, like Mike said, just being able to be nimble like that and kind of do small batches and move around it allows us an ability that a lot of other places don't have.
Speaker 4:Same thing with food.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You can create a burger of the month on the fly as well?
Speaker 2:Yes, I already have your mind kind of thinking of some for the next couple months.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we're going to bring back an old favorite for April, and it was one that we did that was pretty popular. We're still trying to get our sea legs in the kitchen, so we don't want to overwhelm our employees and everything like that. Um, yet, and we've had, you know, our St Patrick's day party, which was a huge hit, then our soft opening week, and now our grand opening week, and now we're finally, you know, getting to the point where everything's kind of settling down. So we hope to, you know, kind of bring back some more, you know, different options and stuff like that coming up soon, so yeah.
Speaker 2:And do you think thinking back, because you said you were looking at starting a couple of years before you were actually able to open? Looking back this far now, could you have seen yourselves where you were or where you are right now, or?
Speaker 3:what were your thoughts? We say that all the time. Wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:Would you imagine yourself, you know, scrubbing the deck of a food truck on a Friday at 5 pm? You?
Speaker 3:know, and it's just funny.
Speaker 5:It's funny stuff yeah no, I'm surprised every week at where I end up, Like I don't think I could tell you where I'm going to be next week. Even, Like you know, it comes back to being nimble. Like I don't think I could tell you where I'm going to be next week, it comes back to being nimble.
Speaker 3:But like, yeah, as a business, you go where the customers tell you they want you to go in a way, very true, not necessarily Not any other way, though.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it comes back to where we started. You know it's all for the customers and, like you could say, I want things to go this way, but that doesn't mean that people are going to latch onto that and you know you could be stubborn and say, no, I want it to go this way, I need it to go this way. But people say, come this way, this is where I want you to go. And then you take it that way and there's so much more reward to you know being what they envision you being it's. You know it's a lot easier than forcing people to go your way.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure sure I like that You've kind of like taken your customers alongside you and kind of incorporated them the entire time.
Speaker 5:And I feel like they definitely understand that and embrace that too. It does not feel like it is our business and they are patrons. It feels like the business belongs to the community. That stretcher remembrance in Walker, the west side, it is their brewery, we run it, but you know it's it's at the end of the day it really does feel like it's theirs and I think that ownership you can see it just coming in there and talking to people and stuff. It's not like just another business, you know right, yeah, that sense you get.
Speaker 2:It is just a neighborhood and obviously all your neighbors and your friends and family are there. Part of that as well. Looking forward in the next five or so years, if you are able to, or you let yourselves look that far in advance where do you see yourselves?
Speaker 3:That's a tough one. We have a grand plan. It really all depends on a lot of things going the right way and the market and all that stuff, but we definitely have plans in place, long goals of five years, ten years stuff like that, possible second locations if it makes sense, all kinds of different things like that. So we don't want to really express any of those things, oh yes.
Speaker 4:We're definitely happy to just have the kitchen open right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Kind of retire the permanent food truck that's been in our parking lot for two years.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we always joke about how every day is a new big project. It would just be great to you know. Settle in a little bit with the kitchen?
Speaker 3:Yes, like we've been.
Speaker 5:It's about it's been almost a whole year since we were like we're going to build a kitchen and then you have to get all the plans drawn up and everything approved. And then you're sitting there with a sledgehammer and knocking down brick walls and you're like how did I get?
Speaker 2:here. That's amazing. You guys put so much like blood, sweat and tears in your business.
Speaker 5:Austin has a lot of construction background so he was able to whatever we could do. He was kind of our, our boss and getting all that done, so had to crack the whip A lot of talent right here on the other side of this table.
Speaker 3:Nobody's hard, nobody's afraid to work very hard. That's important.
Speaker 2:And for the final question where can folks find you and hours and such.
Speaker 4:You can find us at 3393 Remembrance. We're almost across the street from Sobeys, if you recall the old D&W. We're basically across from there. We're open Tuesday through Sunday, so Tuesdays 4 to 9, wednesday, thursday, 4 Sunday, so Tuesdays 4 to 9. Wednesday, thursday 4 to 10. Friday, saturday 12 to 10. And Sundays 12 to 3.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, we appreciate Austin, Mike, Brad, we really appreciate you all being here and we're so thankful to have you in our community. And what can folks do? Just one last thing what can folks do to help support you even more going forward? And what can folks do?
Speaker 3:just one last thing. What can folks do to help support you even more going forward? Just spreading the word, telling people about our products, telling their friends coming in to buy some cans to go, and taking them to events that you're going to, if you're going up to the cottage in the weekend, you know, hopefully pretty soon here we're going to be doing some takeout caterings, so pick up catering boxes and stuff.
Speaker 4:So think about us when you're looking for dinner options and the brewery is family-friendly, so bring the whole family, absolutely All right.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you both so much, thank you all so much for being here today. We appreciate you tuning in. Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Maiden Walker podcast. If you have comments or questions about this podcast, or if you have suggestions for future episodes, we'd love to hear from you. Please drop us an email at podcast at walkercity. Maiden Walker is the official podcast of the city of Walker, Michigan. You can find Maiden Walker wherever you get your podcasts.
