Expanding Bryson City Outdoors – The Craft Beer Department

We are coming up on the second anniversary of Bryson City Outdoors being open:

Each year has had some kind of expansion take place and it was cool to see BCO featured in Our State earlier this year. This year is no different…the team has been hard at work at adding what we call The Craft Beer Department. It’s been almost year in the making and it’s amazing how fast things can come together by over-planning, preparation and good friends. Brett and his friends have been adding on to the store downtown in January. Ben and Brett asked our friend Liz to come on board last spring and the conversations on adding a bottle shop for craft beer started almost immediately.  Western NC has an enormous craft beer industry and tons of great breweries from Asheville to Bryson City and all along the way, but there are not but a handful of bottle shops that cater to the craft beer clientele, so why not do it ourselves.  What goes better with gear than beer!

It’s always good to start with a good foundation….unless you are trying to be handicap accessible from the outside and the inside and the floor tilts from the front to the back by 4 inches. I guess that’s what comes with an old building.  How do you fix that? They poured the walls straight and the floor sloped. No one would ever know but it allows for a smooth transition both at the front door and into the old building.

Our initials: Brett did this for Boo.  He wanted her to have her initials in concrete and a place in history of Bryson City:

Below are Brett and his friends, Erik and Jaime, on the second day of framing.  They framed the entire building in two days. I can barely get the laundry done in two days! 

And here is the building later that day all wrapped up and ready for siding. All the windows were upcycled from another salvage, just like the windows in the original building and still in great shape:

Brett’s friend Kyle and two other guys put the siding on the building and finished up the interior too. They chose to stick with the same siding as the original building, which is all locally sourced Hemlock wood.  It works well on the outside because it’s resistant to rot and bugs.  Brett and a friend sorted and stacked all of this wood for drying last summer in anticipation of the expansion:

Hard maple was the choice for the inside.  It has been drying for years at the old lumber yard, and without any finish it looks like it has been there forever. Liz was the inspiration for the mountain scape on the walls.  She is constantly doodling and Brett noticed the design repeated over and over in her art. Since none of the wood was the same width, it made more sense to try something a little out of the box rather than just hang it horizontally on the wall.  I think it looks amazing:

Finally breaking through from the other side of the store….this is one of windows that was on the outside of the old building. It now serves as a shelf that can be reached from both sides. Two inch thick rough sawn lumber was used for these:

A reclaimed sink from a remodel in town and mirror from PAWS Thrift Shop in town for only $6 completes the look in the bathroom. I love Liz’s hat:

Brett contemplating something important….the tent used to hang on the wall in the old store and they’ve had to move quite a bit around during the renovation: 

More store progress:

Shelving and hardware units are extremely expensive, so Brett decided it was better to make the ones needed for the new store. The shelves on the wall were made with the same reclaimed pine used in the old store.  Brett made the shelving unit in the middle with help from his friend Jaime.  It’s made from a beautiful curly maple and measures 12 feet long and 48 inches high.  It took six guys to move it and almost didn’t fit through the door. The floor was stained with Concrete Coatings (Walnut)…one bottle did the whole thing.

I bought these huge metal letters from the Teddy Bear Motel in Cherokee almost two years ago for $5 each. They have been in storage because I wasn’t sure what I was going to use them for yet. They now hang on the ceiling of the new wing:

The Beer Department is now open for business so stop by if you get a chance! Liz is the resident beer expert (she’s the writer at Under the Tap)…it’s been like Christmas over and over as she sees the new deliveries come in:

Oh, and this is what the building looked like two and a half years ago. I still can’t believe how far it has come:

You can see all the progress photos here as all the layers came off and revealed the history underneath! Bryson City Outdoors also has a store online if you are interested in all things outdoors: