Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick Corona.
Nick, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I fell in love with craft beer in 2012, when I had my first sip of Avery’s Maharaja Imperial IPA at Churchills Pub in San Marcos. It was a life changing experience for me as my taste in beer went from swilling the cheapest beer, I could find to calling around the county for hard to find bottles without asking the price. The very next day, I ordered a homebrew kit and went to work learning how to make beer. My goal was to open a brewery & craft a beer that might one day give someone the same experience that I had when I tried Maharaja. After a year of making sub par beers, I came to a crossroads. I was either going to quit or dive into the craft as far as I could in order to elevate my brewing. I began entering competitions and soliciting anonymous feedback from nationally ranked and qualified judges. Within a couple years, I began to see the fruits of my labor with wins at the local, state, & national levels. I won hundreds of ribbons and medals within a two to three year period, while also securing titles as the San Diego Homebrewer of the year in 2017, Sierra Nevada CA State Homebrewer of the year in 2017, National Homebrewer of the Year in 2016, & Grandmaster in the 2018 Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing.
Fine tuning my recipes, process, & knowledge of brewing, my family & I felt that we were finally ready to bring our brand to market and open our own brewery. While our family is native to San Diego through numerous generations, I spent some time in Las Vegas, where I worked as a casino manager and fell in love with my wife Kandy, who was a Las Vegas Showgirl. Now working as a casino manager at Valley View Casino & Hotel, we decided to share some of that history in our brand. Also wanting to highlight our family name, we know we would run into some roadblocks trying to trademark “Corona” as a brewery, so we played off the English translation of the word, which is “Crown”. We created a fifth suit in the deck of cards, represented by the crown & voila! Five Suits Brewing was born.
After various prospects for opening in Miramar, Vista, & then Escondido all fell through, a pending sale of Barrel Harbor Brewery brought us back to Vista, where we took over the facility at 2575 Pioneer Ave. #104 in Vista, CA. Having envisioned an indoor tasting room decorated in vintage Vegas decor from the days of the Rat Pack, we began to build our dream. Our friends from Vegas donated vintage decor from the 50s & 60s, including authentic theater curtains from casinos like the Sands, the Sahara, & the Hacienda, we went to work.
And then COVID hit.
While the odds were stacked against us, we always knew we had each other. Our family bond in this family business is strong and we immediately made some adjustments to our plan. After ordering a can seamer & a pallet of crowlers, we did what we could while to-go was the only option for us to make sales, before finally receiving all approvals and permits for an outdoor seating venue. We now have a beautiful outdoor patio that gives a very warm, comfortable, & relaxed ambiance for our guests to enjoy. With our backgrounds in guest service, all who arrive are treated like royalty as they enjoy music, watch TV, or dine on some incredibly delicious Peruvian food provided by Al Toque Peruvian Kitchen. All food is made fresh from scratch, meals to order. It truly is an incredible restaurant setting that surprises all who come. We now have weekly specials each day that we are open from Thursday-Sunday, including our popular $15 meal deal every Thursday. Any pint of beer & any entree for just $15. Our most award-winning beer is a German Style Hefeweizen and it pairs wonderfully with Al Toque’s ceviche entree.
Has it been a smooth road?
Well, let’s address the elephant in the room… COVID. For years and years, we’ve worked through potential business deals and looked at potential locations across the county. Never feeling 100% on any of them, we waited until we were confident in our chance for success before finally moving forward on our current Vista location. We felt that we had planned for as many contingencies as we could, but the only thing we didn’t plan for was a worldwide pandemic… who knew? It’s a new world now, where safety, & social distancing are the new norm. While it is a tough pill to swallow considering that our entire business model relies on social interactions, we have worked hard to ensure that we can provide our guests with a safe, but enjoyable venue to visit.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Everything in the casino industry revolves around guest service. Obviously, we don’t have the deep pockets that many casinos have, but what we lack in their funding, we make up for in our passion. We pride ourselves in people. In the short time we have been open, we have seen so many return visits, that we already have numerous regulars gushing about their experiences. We bring a very personal approach to our brewery as your satisfaction is not our goal, because we strive to exceed your expectations in any way we can. I’ve always been known for my hefeweizen during my homebrewing years and my commercial version is no different. It’s not uncommon to hear our guests raving about not having a hef this good since they were in Germany. While the hef is delicious, we have so many more options and styles that continue to be a hit. Our stout is flying out of the taps, our Vienna lager is very popular and of course, our IPAs are popular, because, well…San Diego! And we even developed an incredibly delicious seltzer that is already getting rave reviews. With an upcoming Mint Mojito Selter and our Seltzer mimosas, we feel that we have something for everyone. It’s all about you, our guests. If you aren’t happy, then we aren’t happy.
As a multi-generational, San Diego native family, we absolutely love our community and will be giving back any chance we get. We’ve been fortunate enough to have brewed a beer to benefit the Pink Boots Society, which is a national organization that promotes women’s advancement in the brewing industry. We also teamed up with Urban Surf 4 Kids to brew a benefit beer as well. Urban Surf 4 Kids is a non-profit organization that provides surf therapy to underprivileged, adopted, & foster kids here in San Diego. We also plan to brew a beer called “Black is Beautiful” that will benefit local racial equality programs right here in Vista.
We are very passionate about animal rescue and adoption as well & we plan to host as many events as we can to help that cause. We love our furry friends and those who visit us can expect to be spoiled as well.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
San Diego is truly America’s Finest City and when it comes to breweries, we can’t say anything more accurate. That having been said, any brewery that wants to open here in town certainly needs to deliver a quality product to stand out. We feel confident that we have been able to deliver just that, but we will never be satisfied with the quality of our beers as we strive to improve each offering we make. As for the city, we’ve seen a lot of efforts being made since COVID began and thankfully, we were able to open outdoors. Sadly, since we have not been open for at least a year, none of the grants, funding, or loan options have been available to us, so for now, it’s all about our community’s support. But as native San Diegans and a local family run business, we know that we’ll get just that. We love our city and we love our community. We’ll get through this together, there is no doubt about that. A lot of love has been felt and I’m sure it will continue as we fight to survive and provide a safe, but enjoyable sense of normalcy for all our guests.
Pricing:
- Thirsty Thursdays – $15 Meal Deal Any Five Suits Pint & Any Al Toque Entree 3pm-9pm
- Friday Hot Dog Deal – $8 for a hot dog & any pint of beer
- Saturday’s Full House Combo – To-go Only $45 2 – 32 oz crowlers (styles vary) & 3 entrees (single protein)
- Sunday Brunch Special – $20 8oz seltzer mimosa & Bistek A lo Pobre
Contact Info:
- Address: 2575 Pioneer Ave #104
Vista, CA 92081 - Website: www.fivesuits.com
- Phone: 760-278-3483
- Email: nick@fivesuitsbrewing.com
- Instagram: @fivesuitsbrewing
- Facebook: @fivesuitsbrewing
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/five-suits-brewing-vista
Image Credit:
Dan Gomez
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