Construction of the new Southern Pines Growler Co. building is still moving along, despite being interrupted by the weather — and, you know, a global pandemic.
Southern Pines Growler Co. owners Brandi Underwood and Gerry Bateman expect the building to be complete by mid May, when they’ll proceed with their plans to move into the bottom floor. Construction progress was too far along to pause when state-ordered social distancing guidelines were put into place in mid March.
“If this had occurred a year ago and plans could have been moved back and we could’ve changed the way our lease had been written, we probably would have looked at it a little bit differently,” Gerry says.
The new three-story building, located on Bennett Street, was originally scheduled to be complete at the end of March. Rainy weather throughout December and January, in conjunction with the pandemic hindered progress, pushing the completion date even further.
Mother nature got her act together, offering plenty of sunshine to fuel construction in the previous weeks. But like the rest of the world, the construction site looks a little different, prompting beams and bricks to go up at a slower pace.
“They’re not having many people working at the same time. They’re spreading out the jobs so people aren’t working on top of one another,” Gerry says.
Berri Bowlful still plans to move into the bottle shop portion of the growler’s current building in June or July. Charmed Salon will expand into the taproom portion.
“We wanted to do a sendoff here before moving. If we do that it’s going to be growlers in packages to-go,” Gerry says. “But, you deal with the cards you’re dealt.”
