ISLAND CITY — Side A Brewery and Tasting Room is currently looking for food truck vendors willing to operate throughout the summer at its outdoor food court and dining area in Island City.

Co-owners Scott McConnell and Travis Hansen just marked their seventh year in business, starting with a family restaurant they now call Side A Public House, 1219 Washington Ave., La Grande.

McConnell and Hansen recently expanded their business by establishing Side A Brewery and Tasting Room, 10705 S. Walton Road, Island City. Their vision for the Island City business is to operate as a manufacturing site with Travis Darney as the head brewer. Darney makes 20-23 different varieties of beer, and the tasting room is restricted to people aged 21 and older.

People can also buy beer to go, and nonalcoholic drinks such as cider and the tasting room’s latest release, hop water drinks. McConnell said that hitting the gluten-free and nonalcoholic market is an important part of their business plan.

“We’re open from Thursday to Sunday, but we’ll probably expand our hours as soon as we get food court interest,” McConnell said of the Island City site. “We put a post on Facebook for food vendors and have been in contact with a couple of them, but we definitely need to find more interest if we could.”

Searching for vendors

Hansen said they are looking for a food vendor with quality food that can be delivered in a consistent and timely manner.

“Variety is definitely a plus,” he said. “If we could find a truck offering something that isn’t currently offered in town, that would be a plus.”

Hansen is particularly interested in finding food vendors who offer different cuisines and who are available throughout the summer. Hansen said he will go to the vendor’s site and check things out to see how the vendor operates and, of course, try the vendor’s food.

The goal is to find vendors that can operate at Side A’s food court for a few weeks at a time.

“Hopefully, by summertime we’ll be open seven days a week, but we’ll see how it goes,” Hansen said. “This year, it might just turn out that we’ll be featuring some vendors Thursday through Sunday, depending on availability.”

Since Side A Brewery has not yet gone through a summer at its Island City location, there is no data to offer potential food vendors so they can estimate potential sales there.

“So, it’s kind of a trial and error on both of our sides,” Hansen said.

When Hansen and McConnell secure food vendors that will operate on-site, Side A Brewery will print their menus and have them available inside for people to look over.

“Our plans are to put six cedar picnic tables out front and lighting,” McConnell said. “We have electrical and hook-up there.”

A popular model

The business arrangement between the vendors and Side A Brewery will be negotiated between the parties, but this first summer will be a learning curve for everyone. Although there are many unknowns at this point, the idea of a food court at a brewery is not a new concept.

“This is a popular model around the country for breweries that have space to have other people bring in food,” McConnell said. “We have one restaurant downtown, so we don’t want to operate multiple restaurants, so it makes sense to invite food vendors.”

Also, for variety’s sake, this model allows food vendors an outlet to set up and operate for several weeks at a time. It may even spur young entrepreneur chefs to start their own food truck business.

There is potential seating for about 70 people, including the 36 seats inside the taproom and seating at six picnic tables outdoors.

“We’re hoping to have some sun covering outdoors eventually,” McConnell said.

Side A Brewery and Tasting Room has its own management team, led by Darney, who is at the brewery almost every day. The location employs a total of six people, both part-time and full-time.

“In the next five years with our expanded brewing capacity, we’ll be looking to distribute more of our beer,” McConnell said. “We’re working with a local business, Hodgen Distributing, and they will be selling our beer in the region. We will be doing some of our own distributing.”

At present, Side A Brewery has a small van they use for distribution, but in the next five years the owners hope to expand in this area as they increase their brewery production of lagers for delivery to other businesses.

“We have made a lager for Hot Lake, and so they have their own lager made by us,” McConnell said. “That’s pretty exciting, and we’d like to do that for more places, creating those relationships if we can.”