USA, FL: Couple launches Malted Barley brewpub in Juno Beach

It was a spring break vacation for a Jupiter couple that led to the newest brewpub in Juno Beach, Malted Barley, the Key West Florida Weekly reported on October 3.

Susan and Don Kehl were visiting Westerly, Rhode Island, and happened upon the original Malted Barley. Its sister restaurant is nearby in Providence.

Susan Kehl said her husband had a passion for craft beer, even starting a club for like-minded craft beer aficianados. They immediately felt at home in the place that served local craft beers and big, soft pretzels, along with some bar foods. It was a convivial atmosphere, she said.

“We were sitting at the bar saying we should open something like this in Jupiter,” she said.

The bartender overheard them and told them they were in the right place at the right time: The owner was just now thinking of franchising. He put the two together, and the plan took off from there.

It’s been a three-year project, from working with the franchisor, to finding a location and dealing with the city to build it out.

Asked if they had previous restaurant or bar experience, she said, “None whatsoever. But we do now.”

She is in marketing and public relations, and Mr. Kehl is a CPA, she said. They went over the business, and she spent two weeks working with Westerly’s owner Ron Koller, doing every chore in the restaurant, from baking pretzels to dishwashing and closing for the night to get a hands-on perspective of what it takes to run the pub.

They felt it was doable, and could be an asset to the area where there are few pubs of this kind around.

Their lack of knowledge has worked for them in some ways while building and staffing the corner space in the Loggerhead Plaza on U.S. 1.

“We have no preconceived notions about how to treat employees,” Mr. Kehl said. “We want to treat them as we’d want to be treated. A restaurant is like a family. You work closely with everyone. If they’re happy, the customers are happy. We love their motto: We want everyone to be happier when they leave than when they came in.”

They said they had 500 applicants to the jobs bulletin.

“We went more for personality than anything. You can teach bartending and serving and so on. You can’t teach people how to be friendly and interact with the customer and stay upbeat,” he said.

“The guy who laid the tile floor came in and said he’d be interested in a bartending job. He’d never tended bar, had no experience, but we saw how hard he worked and so precisely. He had such a wonderful work ethic, we were willing to work with him.”

Others who have been hired are experienced, and will be paired with the newcomers as training.

The menu, still taking shape, is static and small, with pretzels and a variety of dips, and a few pretzel sandwiches, salads, soups and a small dessert menu. Thus finding a kitchen crew who were comfortable with the production work was challenging, Mr. Kehl said.

“We’ve been lucky, so far,” he said. “Even though you don’t have creativity, it’s still producing everything fresh. Nothing is premade,” he said. Pretzels are baked to order.

The house mustard is a 48-hour production, made from black and yellow mustard seeds soaked in beer for two days. Pretzels are handmade and placed in a conveyor oven so 200 can be baked per hour.

Mr. Koller, the franchisor, said this market is prime for a Malted Barley.

“Beer and carbs. Seriously, you have to ask?” he said, laughing. “They come in to eat a bunch and drink a bunch and eat a bunch more, and hug us on the way out.”

It’s a wide audience, he said. “We get everybody. We get students sitting next to athletes, next to business people, next to soccer moms and the kids. We’re family friendly. We draw everyone.”

Board games and some video games are available for guests. They don’t have banks of TVs — just a few over the bar.

“We don’t want to be a sports bar. There are plenty of those around. We want people to come in for great beer, great food and great conversation,” Mrs. Kehl said.

A rotating list of 37 craft beers are on tap, plus others in bottles and cans. The list will center on Florida beers, though others popular from around the country will be included. But there are no domestics on the list.

“We can offer a craft beer that can satisfy most,” Mr. Kehl said. He said his dad is the perfect example as a die-hard Bud Light drinker. “He won’t drink anything else.

“He came in and the server was able to offer him a sample of a lighter beer that he liked. He was surprised, but he really liked it. We offer samples, of course, for those who like to try an unfamiliar beer first.”

Craft sodas are arriving soon, and there is a small, curated wine list as well.

The signature pretzels come in a variety of flavors, including cheese and jalapeno stuffed; an Asiago cheese, mozzarella cheese stuffed, a bacon and cheese and plain salted. A gluten-free pretzel that can be used on sandwiches is also on the menu.

As a lunch crowd poured in after a ribbon cutting, Mrs. Kehl was encouraged they had made the right move.

“It still blows my mind. We went on vacation — and came home with a restaurant.”

13 October, 2019