Tom B.
Yelp
Wow, this is a very impressive place already and they've only been open a couple weeks. Their soft opening was evidently quite a success, but we didn't finally make it in here until their grand opening, which just happened Saturday night. It was completely packed.
I can't remember what this building used to be; maybe it was vacant. But ladies and gentlemen, when they say to you now that it is a brewery, you will agree. It is every inch a watering hole and beer production facility at this point. Quite a sight.
This is a stretch of Lake City Way that is not really known for its reserved sophistication; in fact, every nice new business through here will help bring up the average. The two breweries now on LCW go a long way to bring families and nice people out on the town. The other brewery down the street welcomes kids, but I am 99% sure that Hellbent is 21+.
There's a decent amount of parking outside, and around back. They're clearly ADA-compliant, with a long, low-sloped ramp out front that looks like a new addition, and two prime spots up front turned over to chair users. Guess who parked in one of the chair-user spots this past Saturday night? Somebody in a brand-new BMW SUV that was withOUT a visible placard. Still, Hellbent deserves full credit for making the spaces available and adding the ramp. It's a very polished and professional presentation right from the first impression you get outside.
In fact, before you even park, you can tell the place is serious. The building has been re-sided and there's a beautifully lit giant new sign facing the street. It's almost like the type of sign a fine-dining place would have put up years ago, with lots of small soft-light bulbs outlining the silhouette of the sign.
Once you're inside, it's kind of hard to believe this place was ever anything else. There's highboy and table seating here and there, and dogs are welcome. On one wall, there are huge overstuffed leather couches that look like they belong in a gentleman's club. There's a staircase to a mezzanine that overlooks the main room, and the bar faces everything at a 45-degree angle. You get a nice variety of defined spaces that don't take up a lot of area, and even when it's crowded, people move easily around the building.
Behind the bar, there's a big series of windows that showcase gigantic, gleaming, stainless steel tanks in the brewhouse. From the taproom and the brewhouse, big roll-up doors lead out to a nice patio space carved out of the parking lot. The patio space has picnic tables, and often hosts a food truck. For their grand opening, they had a hot dog cart, which seemed oddly understated compared to all the fancy touches indoors, but that's alright. They have scheduled some more-ambitious food trucks already, so they are not messing around with their partnerships there at all.
It's kind of hard to believe how nice this place already is inside. The flat screens everywhere, the nice couches, the custom-made heavy barstools, the reclaimed timbers everywhere in the bar, taproom, and mezzanine, the gigantic brew system already in place. They even have murals decorating the backwalls and the staircase, and the tapline conduit has stencils and a potted plant on it. If it can be decorated or otherwise done up in here, it is decorated or done up.
Best of all, though, the staff are nice and the beer is good. The bartenders are mostly young, but they're enthusiastic and right on point. I didn't ask them any beer questions, so I don't know how their beer training stacks up, but I'm sure it's fine. They've opened this place with a very limited lineup--an IPA, a pale, a red, something else. There were about 10 guest taps pouring, virtually of them great beers, and most from great breweries. Very nice choices, and clearly they have the trust of their peers. They ought to--their brewmaster has been a pro in this area for two decades. The IPA had a ton of fresh, clear hop flavors, and it was flawless. The pale could have used little more flavor but it was a well-made beer. I'll definitely be back to try everything else they make.