LAKE COUNTY, Fla. – A trip to Denver led Andy Sheeter down a path that has him getting ready to move his business into a 40,000-square-foot brewery.
“I went on a ski trip with some friends. We were out in Breckenridge and then we were in Boulder, Colorado, and we went to a brewery,” Sheeter said. “And there were three of us and we thought ‘This is really cool. We should try this,’ and so on the flight home from Denver, by the time we landed, we had a brewery concept.”
Crooked Can Brewing Company officially opened for business in March 2015.
Sheeter said he knew he wanted to open in Winter Garden.
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“We just felt that Winter Garden was where it was at,” he said.
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Sheeter and his then-partners — he has since bought them out of the business — purchased an empty apartment complex that had gone into disrepair and become a nuisance property. They had the place leveled and began building what would become the Plant Street Market — a brewery and food hall.
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“Once we started building the brewery, I knew instantaneously it was going to be a hit because we would go there on a Saturday or Sunday and would go to the worksite and it was literally like a parade of bikes, golf carts, cars, everybody going by and everybody staring at us trying to figure out when we were going to be done,” Sheeter said.
Sure enough, he said the brewery saw instant success.
“What I’m surprised in is that we continue to grow year after year,” he said. “Because every year, I look at the amount of business we do, the amount of customers that come through here and I say to myself, ‘I don’t know how we can handle more than this,’ then every year we do.”
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However, even though Plant Street Market has handled the growing business up to this point, it is time for the brewery to grow.
The brewery is starting construction on a new flagship location in Minneola.
“It’s going to go into what’s called the Hills in Minneola, which there’s a new turnpike exit on Hancock Road,” he said. “There’s going to be a roughly 132-acre development there that’s going to have mixed-use section. It’s going to have a hospital. It’s going to have a hotel. It’s going to have a lot of retail, grocery and, last I heard, roughly 1,000 apartments that are going to be on top of the retail.”
Sheeter said he hopes to have the new brewery open by 2025.
On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Sheeter talks about why he is so focused on keeping his brewery in Central Florida. He also talks more about the new brewery and his possible plans for the future.
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Florida Foodie is a podcast from WKMG and Graham Media that takes a closer look at what we eat, how we eat it and the impact that has on us here in Florida and for everyone, everywhere. Find new episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.
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