USA, IL: Good News Brewing Company to officially open in Alton on July 3

The Post Commons building at 300 Alby St., Alton will soon be regularly offering more than coffee, pastries, and good vibes, The Telegraph reported on June 20.

The “living room of Alton” will add Good News Brewing Company, which officially opens July 3, with wood-fired pizza and craft beer.

“The building is really a draw for downtown,” Hugh Halter, founder of Post Commons and The Lantern Network, said. “We wanted some concept to keep this building open all day and all night.”

Good News Brewing Company (GNBC), a brewpub franchise founded in 2014 that now has one food truck and five total locations. The business will offer wood-fired sourdough pizza, eight taps of craft beer and sours, and exist as a gathering place to "come together and share Good News over a pint,” according to the company's website.

The business will be located in the Post Commons space and operated by Lantern Network, an Alton-based non-profit geared toward incubating businesses.

“This space is more about incubating new works that can help the city in any function,” he said.

GNBC plans to operate seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the former space of the historic post office’s cargo bay with access to the building’s event space and front patio. Renovations to the GNBC space, formerly Idle Coffee Company roastery for the past five years, include aesthetic buildout to add a bar, indoor seating, and a pizza kitchen with a hand-built wood-fire pizza oven from New York City.

This addition to Post Commons will also extend the hours of the building’s main dining room until 9 p.m. daily. It's currently open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. And as a result, Post Commons food and coffee bar will extend its hours until 7 p.m.

“We felt like the city wanted the building to be open [all day],” Halter said. “There just hasn’t been a meeting space for people to hang out during the day.”

Prior to opening, Good News Brewing Company is holding limited-service soft opens in the weeks ahead. With more hours and more responsibilities added to the space, the business needs this time to hire and prepare employees and to assess their inventory for full-scale operation.

“It’s been really good so far, so I think we're excited for people to experience it,” Halter said.

Updates to the upcoming soft openings will be posted on the business's Instagram account. For the week of June 16-20, Good News Brewing Company hours for Monday to Friday were 4-9 p.m.

Outside of his Alton “labor of love,” Halter also does leadership consulting around the country and has written books that are separate from his work in Alton. Dan Tripp, co-owner of GNBC, read one of Halter’s books, and it partially inspired the founding of the brewing company.

Years later, Halter reached out to Tripp for business advice. That’s when he was offered the opportunity to bring a GNBC franchise location to Alton, turning their connection into a business collaboration.

“We’re here for Alton, not to just open a business for ourselves,” Halter said. “Our primary commodity is not the products we serve, or even the building, it’s the people and the spirit of the building that people pick up on.”