Fredericton’s Latest Tap Room Is Also Fredericton’s Latest Pizza Place
FREDERICTON — It is 31 degrees, and while the patio is still under construction, things are already in full swing at Half Cut and Coast Line Pizza.
Half Cut Brewing Company, a long-time brewing enterprise of Matt Corey, opened on the city’s north side earlier this week with a string of 4pm-to-Midnight runs for its first customers.
Located at the site of what was once a glass repair operation at 67 Main Street, Half Cut features a dozen taps alongside food from Coast Line Pizza, the latest endeavor from the owners of 11th Mile in Fredericton.
Corey, who started with Picaroons, began utilizing contract brewing in 2015 as his production model. Now, his new Main Street location is becoming the brand’s first tap room all its own.
“I was wanting a space that’s my own, but I thought there was some work that needed to be done with some of the regulations around how you can produce beer in the province,” Corey told Huddle.
“I thought there was a bit of a disconnect. There was no reason why the contract brewing model couldn’t be utilized as a means of producing beer and selling it through ANBL and to licensees,” he said.
He continued to push that model over the years, even as he describes, “at the expense some growth,” but maintains he’s been consistently able to grow his business that way each year.
Corey was able to establish a good network of industry contacts through selling kegs to restaurants and bars, but until the prospect arose to gain a tap space with 11th Mile, he hadn’t partnered with anyone on doing something larger like a tap-style restaurant.
“Right now, the focus is a full-service tap room,” says Corey, who in addition to locally produced brews, is offering a variety of drinks that also include ciders and wines to start off.
Focus on the dough
Jennie Wilson, co-owner of 11th Mile, got to know Corey from being a longtime customer in supplying his contract brew to the restaurant over the years.
Coming out of the pandemic, Jennie, along with husband/co-owner Peter Wilson, wanted to start a new project, one that saw Corey became involved almost out of the gate.
“We wanted to do something a little more fun, not a full-service restaurant, and we landed on pizza,” said Wilson. “It just dovetailed with Matt’s plans, as he was looking for food — we were looking for a place to do food — and the timing lined up perfectly.”
There are a lot of pizza options in North Fredericton, and that’s not considering Fredericton on the whole.
“We didn’t want to come in and provide more of the same – and there’s a ton of pizza here,” stated Wilson. “We’ve got some folks already in the city doing really great thin crust wood-fired pizzas, so we wanted to kind of stay out of that space and do something different.”
“Really, our focus is on the dough,” described Wilson, who says her and Peter elected to go with a Detroit Style pizza, all from scratch dough made on site.
The style of the finished product is recognizable by its iconic square shape and crunchy, cheesy corner slices and often comes with a unique layering structure for its cheeses and toppings.
Wilson also reveals the name, “Coast Line” — is actually pizza slang for the exposed sauce between where the cheese ends and the beginning of the crust.
Successful launch this week
It is a few hours before the 4pm opening on Thursday, and the crew already have two successful nights of service under their belt.
Wilson says finding the right people to open Coast Line also hasn’t been as challenging as expected.
“We were really struggling coming out of COVID to build our team back up to a level at 11th Mile and then something happened, and the workforce started moving for us again.”
She adds when it came time to hire, they not only found people willing to learn, but 11th Mile’s Sous Chef was also given the opportunity to run Coast Line’s food service day-to-day.
“When we were trying to ramp up at 11th Mile and rehire, it was hard,” admitted Wilson about the ongoing labour shortage.
She hopes to some extent, 11th Mile’s reputation had done something in helping to make an impact when it came to attracting the right hands quickly.
That reputation has come with providing competitive pay, predictable shifts and consecutive days off, a luxury for smaller operations, even when at full staff.
Delivery for equipment has been an issue for a lot of restaurants. For Coast Line, it meant almost not getting its pizza oven for 18 months, though the overriding fixture made it onboard before supply for large kitchen components began to dry up into the summer.
“In talking to suppliers since then, we got really lucky, Now it’s lead time on equipment,” shared Wilson.
She says a couple years ago, it would have been a week standard to get something in, — “Now you’re just sort of waiting — there’s been a lot of delays on the equipment side.”
Beyond supply challenges, the Wilsons’ and Corey made it work, with Corey saying the 55-seat tap room was “good to go” for week one, adding work on the patio is set to wrap up, “In the next couple of weeks,” to complete the customer space.
Wilson meanwhile says nights one and two went absolutely perfect, and for anyone who’s looking to come out and try the pizza and drinks, they’ve currently got seven days a week to choose from.
“So, right now we’re doing Monday through Friday, open at four o’clock, then Saturday, Sunday open at Noon,” shared Wilson. “You have to cast a wide net with hours to gauge the community behavior, before tightening up those hours as you go.”
“We just kind of plan two weeks in advance and let it roll, and then we’ll see what we need to do as we move forward.”
Tyler Mclean is a Huddle reporter based in Fredericton. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].