GOOD HOPE — Good Hope’s growing commercial span near Interstate 65 is set to receive a major boost in the coming months, following a new tweak to the city’s alcohol ordinance that will allow groundbreaking to begin on a forthcoming restaurant that will feature an attached microbrewery and, at its opposite end, a winery.
At its regular meeting Monday, the Good Hope City Council approved an updated version of its alcohol ordinance; one that incorporates language intended to keep pace with the State of Alabama’s evolving regulations concerning microbreweries whose business models are based on on-premises consumption.
Just such a microbrewery is in the development stage as part of a planned restaurant located along County Road 222 just west of the road’s Interstate 65 exit. The business, based partially on an existing oven-fired pizza kitchen and winery located in Rogersville, will feature the restaurant within its central space, flanked at opposite ends by the microbrewery and winery.
Rogersville’s Bloom Winery will provide two-thirds of the template for the Good Hope restaurant’s overall concept. Bloom owner Eric Cornelius had previously approached the city with hopes of finding a new location for his family’s combined pizza kitchen and winery, while another business owner separately had sought a Good Hope location to place a new microbrewery. The close timing presented city leaders with an opportunity to suggest that the two ideas combine, leading to the current plan to house all three concepts — restaurant, microbrewery, and winery — under one new-construction roof.
In anticipation of commercial development along County Road 222, the city already had annexed the property, a parcel just east of Van’s Sporting Goods owned by Jeffrey and Connie Greening. A recent $2 million sewer line extension will serve the new business, as well as any others that might eventually locate along an available strip of acreage along the road’s north side opposite a recently-constructed Shell service station and convenience store.
“This is just going to be a nice, nice place once it’s finished and open for business,” said Good Hope mayor Jerry Bartlett. “These folks aren’t looking to do something halfway; they’re very thorough and very good at what they do, and it’s going to be something really unique — not just in Good Hope, but really anywhere in this entire part of the state. We’re just really excited about it.”
Tentative plans call for the business to be up and running in the coming months, with Brown cautiously eyeing this fall as a potential opening date.