USA, MD: BabyCat Brewery to open a second location in Bethesda

Kensington’s BabyCat Brewery will be opening a new location in downtown Bethesda’s Woodmont Triangle neighborhood in early 2025, according to co-founder Terry Redmond.

The brewery plans to expand to a second space, called BabyCat Brewery & Kitchen, with a 4,400-square-foot taproom and brewhouse in the ground-floor retail space within the Gallery Bethesda II apartment building at 4850 Rugby Ave.

BabyCat Brewery signed a lease for the space about a month ago, Redmond told MoCo360 Friday. The Montgomery Newsletter first reported the signed lease.

“We’re super excited about it. We really like our concept, and it seems to resonate really well in the community of Kensington. We’re hoping to do the same thing in Bethesda,” Redmond said, referring to the brewery’s focus on creating a gathering space for the communities it serves.

BabyCat Brewery first opened at 10241 Kensington Parkway in November 2022. The brewery’s name is based on co-founder Sam Musomelli’s cat Alice, a.k.a., “Baby Cat,” a small cat “who never really grew,” Musomelli told MoCo360 in 2022. The feline’s face is the brewery’s logo and can be seen on murals around the Kensington location. BabyCat Brewery is run by co-founders Musomelli and Redmond, as well as business manager Kerry Pratt and head brewer Philip Zanello.

At the Bethesda location, customers can expect to enjoy the same craft beers served in Kensington, such as Catnip Bender, Black Cat and On the Prowl, plus some custom brews representing the Bethesda community, according to Redmond. He said the custom brews haven’t been developed but will likely “bubble up” organically as the brewery nears its opening.

In addition, the Bethesda location will have a full kitchen—eliminating the need for the food trucks that are a mainstay at the Kensington brewery, according to Redmond. However, the Bethesda location will continue the Kensington site’s tradition of allowing patrons to bring their own food to the brewery.

The new space includes a large tap room that will offer a variety of seating, a 29-seat bar, a brew house and dog-friendly plaza seating, according to Redmond.

Another feature of the brewery will be three garage doors that can be opened to create a breezy atmosphere, he said. The garage doors are a special feature of the brewery’s Kensington location, formerly an auto shop for about 50 years.

Redmond anticipates the customer base in Bethesda to be different than in Kensington, with more singles and fewer families with kids. At the BabyCat in Kensington, as many as 60 kids often can be found enjoying the space with their families on Saturdays, he said.

“It’s kind of a quieter area of Bethesda, in that [northern] Woodmont Triangle area and there’s not a lot of energy or a lot of activity or a lot of community there. There’s no kind of meeting place for all the folks living in those apartments and we look at that as an opportunity to bring our concept,” Redmond said of the neighborhood that’s home to a mix of local and chain restaurants, housing, bars, shops and businesses.

BabyCat is focused on creating a community-building space rather than being a brewery focused mostly on sampling craft beers or taking a “deep dive” on the brew house concept, Redmond said.

“We’re more, like, how can we bring the residents of this area together?” he said.

The idea to open the Bethesda space stemmed from conversations with Bethesda-based Donohoe Cos., the owner of the Rugby Avenue building that had been looking for a tenant to fill the vacant ground-floor retail space, Redmond said.

In months before the anticipated opening, BabyCat is working on permit applications to submit to the county and also waiting for Donohoe to complete construction of the primary structure of the brewery, such as installing flooring and heating and air conditioning, Redmond said.

Once it opens, BabyCat Brewery & Kitchen expects to initially host a series of soft openings and to invite local apartment building residents and food industry workers in the area to try its brews, according to Redmond.

18 August, 2024