E275 Sean Goodchild
Reviving Kitchener's Boathouse
A former touring musician and lifelong bartender turned brand director and bar owner, Sean Goodchild joins the show to talk beer, bands, and bringing a century-old Kitchener landmark back to life.*
In this episode of The Industry Podcast, we sit down with Sean Goodchild, co-owner and program director of The Boathouse DTK in Victoria Park, and director of brand development for Farm League Brewing in Galt. Sean traces his path from bartending and touring in a band across 15 years in London, Ontario, to a graphic design role at Waterloo Brewing. in 2020, a partnership manager position through the Carlsberg acquisition, and eventually a jump to Farm League — the "blue collar craft" brewery known for collaborations with acts like Greta Van Fleet and Mount Joy, and for running the Meadows and Fest2Fall music festivals.
The conversation digs into the two-year process of transforming The Boathouse — a heritage-designated building on city-owned land dating back to 1896 — into a modern bar and venue, including how the ownership group became the first in the city to win unanimous Heritage Committee approval to expand the patio. Sean and the guys also get into the state of the live music industry post-pandemic, why charging a cover matters for musicians and venues alike, and why supporting independent bars and restaurants is more important than ever.
- The sales lessons Sean picked up moving from bartending into corporate sales at Waterloo Brewing
- What changes when a craft brewery gets bought by an international giant like Carlsberg
- Why a good lager is harder to brew than a hoppy IPA
- Building The Boathouse ownership group and navigating city bureaucracy on a heritage property
- Balancing a touring musician's life with running two hospitality businesses
- The economics of live music venues and why cover charges protect musicians
- Why the pandemic permanently changed drinking and spending habits
Connect with Sean Goodchild
- The Boathouse DTK boathousedtk.com @boathousedtk
- Farm League Brewing farmleaguebrewing.com @farmleaguebrewing
- Meadows Music Festival meadowsfest.ca @meadowsfergus
- Fest2Fall Music Festival fest2fall.com @fest2fall
A big thank you to Jean-Marc Dykes of Imbiblia. Imbiblia is a cocktail app for bartenders, restaurants and cocktail lovers alike and built by a bartender with more than a decade of experience behind the bar. Several of the features includes the ability to create your own Imbiblia Recipe Cards with the Imbiblia Cocktail Builder, rapidly select ingredients, garnishes, methods and workshop recipes with a unique visual format, search by taste, using flavour profiles unique to Imbiblia, share recipes publicly plus many more......Imbiblia - check it out!
Contact the host Kypp Saunders by email at [email protected] for products from Elora Distilling and Noble Estates.
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