- April 24, 2024
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Tomoka Brewing to open Port Orange location
The owners of a craft beer establishment have turned out to be crafty entrepreneurs. They are now planning on opening a much larger business in addition the one they started 14 months ago.
Pete Szunyogh and his wife Jen Hawkins opened Tomoka Brewing, 188 E. Granada Blvd., in July of 2013, just as craft beer was getting popular.
“We were fortunate,” Szunyogh said. “We built up regular customers very fast.”
Now they plan to open a larger facility in Port Orange that will allow them to make more beer as well as more dining options.
“We can’t brew enough beer here to meet the demand,” Hawkins said.
They can only make one barrel in their current location, and have eight taps at the bar. In the new location at 4647 S. Clyde Morris Blvd., they will have 12 taps and will be able to brew 15 Barrels. One barrel contains 31 gallons.
They hope to open their new place in late January. Getting both a brewery and a restaurant started requires a lot of work, Szunyogh said.
Also, they are currently busy brewing a special nut brown ale that will go sale Oct. 12. Proceeds from the sale all that week will go to the Halifax Humane Society.
“We just like animals,” Hawkins said.
Szunyogh said business has been great in Ormond Beach. They offer a gourmet pizza with fresh ingredients, making their own dough and sauce. (Some of their craft beer goes into the sauce.)
“It’s more like a California pizza than Italian,” Szunyogh said.
Both owners have restaurant backgrounds. Hawkins owned a pizza shop in Ocala and Szunyogh learned to be a pastry chef in his native Hungary before coming to the U.S. in 2000 where he attended UCF.
They got into the craft beer business, as many have, by first being home brewers.
“We decided to get serious about it,” Hawkins said. They learned more of the trade by shadowing professional brewers in their work.
The move to Port Orange was prompted by several reasons. They already have an Ormond Beach location, Port Orange offers a large population, and they found a place large enough for a restaurant and brewery. They have two partners in the new restaurant, Rich McCarthy and Sue Borwick, of Port Orange.
They have five employees in their Ormond Beach location and will be hiring 15 to 20 people for the Port Orange location.
“We have an exceptional chef that is assembling an upscale, affordable menu featuring specialty signature dishes,” Szunyogh said.
He said the menu will have both a Florida influence and an international flare and they will using a lot of their beers in the recipes.
Szunyogh said he enjoys brewing beer because of the creativity involved in making new brews.
“I have a new idea every day,” he said.
They currently offer three “core” beers: an IPA, a stout and a wheat beer, and also make several specialty beers. Currently the most popular beer is the IPA, which Hawkins described as “hoppy.” A lot of people ask for light beers, but there is also a market for stouts and dark beer, especially as fall arrives.
