West Coast Grocery Company Opens

Nope, we haven't started covering the opening of new places to do your grocery shopping. West Coast Grocery Company is in fact a brewery located in the heart of inner SE across Stark Street from Beer and Meat Cheese Bread and kitty corner from Revolution Hall. The name speaks to times past when the heart of the neighborhood was the corner grocery and in fact the owners' family has a history in the Northwest wholesale grocery business dating back to 1891.

Occupying the corner space of the building, the brewery features a sunken brewing floor that is open to the main level of seating, accessed by entering from street level. The bright space is made up by a combination of tables and bar rails on the perimeter. Go up a short flight of stairs from there and one reaches the second seating area where the bar is located. In addition to more tables there is a cozy living room like seating space as well as a shuffle board table.

WCGco has brewed a handful of beers with local breweries - Laurelwood, Breakside, Level, Baerlic and Victor 23 - that they will be pouring with guest beers from their 12 taps. As it turned out we had already tried the collaboration with Level, a Norwegian take on a Grisette, while at Level. An easy drinking 4.3% and exactly what we would expect from the style, it's great for warm weather drinking or the start of any session. As good as that was, we opted to try a couple of others that we had not yet tasted, starting with the hazy IPA collaboration with Victor 23. Fuzzy Balls Hazy IPA clocks in at a moderate 6% and features a pleasant hop presence. The other IPA available during our visit was Bo-De-Ga, a collaboration with Breakside. As expected from such an IPA powerhouse, this is a solid IPA that fans of Breakside's beers should enjoy. While they were out of the Laurelwood collaboration (a pale ale) and we didn't get around to the Baerlic (a pilsner), this initial line up offers a well rounded representation of styles.

To accompany the liquid libations their kitchen offers a small but something-for-everyone menu of snacks, salads, sandwiches, wings and burgers. At the preview we attended we were able to try a slider sized version of their burger, wings (both garlic soy and sweet & spicy), fries with Portland ketchup and spicy feta dip, potato salad, won ton chips, pork cracklings and jalapeno nacho cheese. All were well made with our favorites being the burgers and anything coated with the addictive jalapeno nacho cheese.

The soft opening takes place today, July 24 5 - 10 pm, with the grand opening scheduled for Thursday, July 26. Follow them on Instagram or Facebook for the latest updates on both events.

West Coast Grocery Company
1403 SE Stark Street