USA, CA: Tarantula Hill Brewing Company on track to be Thousand Oaks’ first restaurant/microbrewery

The people behind Tarantula Hill Brewing Company, on track to be Thousand Oaks’ first restaurant/microbrewery, are striving to make their soon-to-open location everyone’s favorite new hangout, the Thousand Oaks Acorn reported on May 16.

“We don’t call it our brewery, it’s Thousand Oaks’ brewery,” CEO Ali Zia said.

To that end, Zia and cofounders John Edney and Mike Orosco—all 1991 graduates of Thousand Oaks High School—have plenty of plans on tap.

Primarily, the brewery will have a family-friendly focus. While the kiddos can’t soak up the suds, the establishment will offer woodfired pizza—the shiny new oven is already in place—and premium ice cream made on site using the knowledge Edney gained through his family’s Hawaii-based Tropical Dreams Ice Cream Co. Don’t look for that label, however. Edney’s creations will be all his, often made from locally sourced ingredients.

“The main thing is our base is 18% butter fat so it’s very decadent to start,” Edney said. “We’ll do all the classics and lots of fun stuff for the kids, but then we’ll do some beer ice cream.”

For adults who don’t drink alcohol, the brewery will also offer its own blend of coffee. That, too, will likely get incorporated into ice cream.

The joint will also be a comfortable place to hang out with seating options at the bar, in the large open room or on the 3,700-square-foot outdoor deck right on Thousand Oaks Boulevard. The deck, one of the last pieces to be put in place at what has become a busy construction site, runs nearly the entire length of what once was the site of Plummers furniture store at 244 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd. More recently, the building served as a Halloween store.

Originally slated to open in late 2018/early 2019, the founders are reluctant to name a precise opening date, but they agree it will be sometime this summer.

Delays were due to multiple factors, including challenges related to transforming the massive building just east of Moorpark Road, said Zia, who also co-owns Bottle & Pint, a tap room and bottle shop in Newbury Park.

“We started letting people know about it almost a year ago. The excitement is there and people are aware of it,” Zia said. “At this point, people are like ‘When are you going to open?”

With most of the walls as well as the wood counter and a 20-barrel system for its main brews and an additional five-barrel system for smaller special issues already in place, the 21,000-square-foot site (with 4,000 of those square feet making up the second story) is beginning to look like a brewery, though a conference table is still set up in what will become a walk-in refrigeration room.

Tarantula Hill has already brewed its first issue, a shared effort with a group out of San Diego that was brewed off-site.

The Tarantula team debuted Conejo Valley Haze, a hazy IPA that was a collaboration with Burgeon Beer Company, at last week’s Thousand Oaks Chili Cook-Off.

It won the People’s Choice award.

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