A Midtown Anchorage building that previously housed a Canadian dining chain and a hockey bar will soon be home to another restaurant, this time an alehouse with about 75 beers on tap.
Anchorage Alehouse is set to open in June at 2830 C St., said co-owner Matt Tomter, in the building where Boston's Restaurant and Sports Bar and then Crossbar Sports Restaurant once were.
He owns Palmer City Alehouse and Eagle River Alehouse and said he's long been looking at expanding to Anchorage.
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"You go to a lot of these places in Midtown and they have one or two IPAs on tap," he said. When it comes to bars with a huge beer selection in Anchorage, he added, "there's just not a lot of places."
The new restaurant, and its menu, will be similar to the Palmer and Eagle River locations. Tomter said he and Anchorage Alehouse partner Linda Hotchkiss plan to hire a staff of 85 to 90 for the 6,000-square-foot space.
As for opening a new restaurant in Alaska's current tough economic climate, Tomter's not worried.
"People in good times and bad times go out and drink beer," he said.
The building, in the heart of Midtown between Northern Lights and Benson boulevards, was once home to Boston's, a chain restaurant originally from Canada, which opened in 2002. After Boston's closed, the hockey-themed Crossbar opened there in late 2013.
Crossbar shut its doors suddenly in 2015, with the owners engaged in a legal dispute that included allegations of embezzlement, breached contracts, and fraud, Alaska Dispatch News reported at the time.
[Owners of shuttered Anchorage restaurant Crossbar locked in legal battle]
Tomter doesn't own the building where he's setting up the Anchorage Alehouse. When asked if he had plans to buy it, he said he didn't "want to discuss anything."
The alehouse is in the process of applying for its alcohol license, he said.
The new restaurant is just one of Tomter's plans for growth. He's also one of the owners of the new Matanuska Brewing Co. and told ADN he plans to produce 20,000 barrels a year from the former Matanuska Maid bottling plant in Palmer.