Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacob Bates.
Hi Jacob , can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Our organization opened up Bird Creek Burger Co in Downtown Temple off of Main Street in 2017 as a small family run business. We wanted to bring something a little different to the downtown area with specialty burgers and scratch kitchen offerings. As time progressed we saw the potential for Downtown Temple’s growth and decided to renovate a historical property and open up Treno Pizzeria & Taproom in 2020 off of 1st Street. Covid procedures pushed our opening date out a bit for the brick and mortar opening of Treno so we got creative and utilized our mobile woodfired pizza oven for a program called “Drive By Pies” where we popped up in neighborhoods around town bringing the community together from their driveways for block parties out in the open. This move helped us build an incredibly loyal customer base that loves our pizza – making the brick and mortar opening a success when we were able to finally open. During this time period we noticed significant growth in the Downtown Temple area and within our own businesses making an expansion into a larger location for Bird Creek Burger Co necessary. We also noticed a lack of breweries in the northern Central Texas area. This led us to the idea of bringing on some incredible brewers with extensive experience and knowledge of craft beer and transforming Bird Creek Burger Co into Bird Creek Brewing. After extensive renovations to another historic building off of 4th Street in Downtown Temple we moved into our new location and launched Bird Creek Brewing in September 2023. Our much larger new location offers a full kitchen, an indoor brewery seating space and bar with the ability to watch the brewers do their thing, an outdoor covered Biergarden space with stage for hosting live music and large gatherings, and a newly opened uncovered lawn green space perfect for cornhole or enjoying a pint with your pup. Within several months of opening our brewers brought home two medals from the Texas Craft Brewers for our flagship beers Lambo Truck Hazy IPA and Nerf Warz Amercian IPA and have since built up to 6 medals in Texas and Nationally. The brewery offers live music every Friday and Saturday night and Sunday at lunch with a huge variety of music like country, jazz, salsa and alternative to mention a few. Treno Pizzeria has built a huge following with families locally as we offer a huge enclosed outdoor playground, lower lawn area with giant screen perfect for large gatherings and Wednesday Kid’s Movie Nights, plus a 36 tap self-serve beerwall with a huge assortment of local craft beer, wine, seltzers and ciders. For Treno we still utilize our mobile wood fired pizza oven for catering weddings, company parties and attending various local events. Bird Creek Brewing has also added on a mobile beer van with four taps to cater local parties and events. We look forward to many more years in Downtown Temple making killer pizza, award winning craft beer and juicy burgers!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. Covid changes really threw us for a loop in addition to raising a family of three kids, lots of Downtown Temple construction as infrastructure changes were needed and economic changes within the brewing and restaurant industry. We have worked really hard with our incredible staff at each location to adjust to each challenge as they come. The Temple community has also been really great about supporting us through our endeavors.
We’ve been impressed with Bird Creek Brewing, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Bird Creek Brewing specializes in producing award winning craft beer and hosting an environment to bring live music, great food and community building to our Downtown Temple area. Treno Pizzeria & Taproom specializes in amazing wood fired pizza with high quality ingredients and scratch recipes built into every recipe.
What matters most to you?
The people who work day in and day out at our organizations matter the most to us. We employ close to 80 people between Treno Pizzeria and Bird Creek Brewing in the Downtown Temple area. We work really hard to pay fair wages, offer benefits and support them, their families and their careers as much as possible. They are the backbone of what makes our concepts work and succeed so it is really important to us that they are happy and thriving.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.BirdCreekBrewing.com and www.TrenoPizzeria.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/birdcreekbrewing/ and https://www.instagram.com/trenopizzeria/
- Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/Birdcreekburgerco/ and https://web.facebook.com/trenopizzeria/
