Exploring Life & Business with Sara Kazmer of Elsewhere Brewing

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Kazmer.

Hi Sara, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My connection to hospitality begins in high school: one of my first jobs was hosting and bussing tables at a small-town restaurant on the Chain of Lakes in Illinois. I worked in different roles in the industry through high school and started bartending during college. Just before my last year of college in Chicago, I met my husband at a bar in Florence, Italy. Needless to say, my life started to accelerate in a new direction.

After graduating college with a degree in marketing, I moved out to Tacoma, WA to be with him and begin my career in marketing. After several months of struggling, I found a job in Seattle at a firm specializing in branding. I learned so much about the importance of a strong brand: the story, meaning behind the name, look and feel, and messaging. I started to think more about why I dined at certain restaurants and gravitated toward certain beer brands. The Pacific Northwest has an incredible craft beer scene, and I naturally fell in love with beer. That being said, I couldn’t help noticing how male-dominated the industry was in its branding, beer styles, and taproom design.

It didn’t take long to realize that office life was not for me, and I was tired of spending four hours a day commuting by bus to Seattle from Tacoma. I noticed that a local brewery was opening a second location across the street from us. I told my husband, Sam, I was going to apply for a management job there and that I was ready to get back into the industry. I had worked in almost every type of bar/restaurant but not a brewery. I wanted to see if the culture was any different.

One month later, I was walking across the street to my new job – the best commute ever. I learned quickly just how different the beer industry was. It attracted down-to-earth people who connected over a product that was enjoyable to share at any time of the day. Unlike wine or whiskey, an average-strength beer can be enjoyably consumed at lunch, dinner, or even breakfast: it’s just a more social beverage. The customers were all warm and friendly, and the brewery attracted similar people for its staff.

Meanwhile, my husband was recovering from a parachuting accident sustained while training with the 2nd Ranger Battalion. After that, we were questioning what to do with our future together. My wanderlust was strong, and I felt confident that the craft beer industry could benefit from a female-driven brewery. I thought, ‘why not travel the world to learn about beer and come back to open a brewery!’

Starting in the Summer of 2017, we traveled through South America and Europe, interviewing brewers and brewery owners, learning about new businesses and ones that have been open for centuries. I started to see what contributes to a pub’s cozy aesthetic and what food pairs well with beer without being too filling. We tasted some of the best beer in the world and discovered how it is that some breweries make beers that remain popular for centuries. We took notes every day and arrived in Atlanta at the end of 2018. Sam, my husband, grew up in Gwinnett County, and when we would visit his parents prior to 2017, we noticed that the Georgia craft beer scene was still in its infancy.

After spending eight months in Sam’s parent’s basement writing up a business plan and making several attempts at unsuccessful partnerships, we decided to just do it all ourselves! Spending about six months looking for prospective locations, we fell in love with the Grant Park neighborhood because it had a similar vibe to our favorite neighborhoods in Seattle, Portland, and Tacoma. Eventually, the stars aligned: we received an SBA bank loan, found the perfect space in Grant Park in May 2019, and signed a lease!

Fast forward two years after that and we are about to begin building out our second location in West Midtown.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
After the pandemic began, the food and beverage restaurant industry changed. People realized they could save a ton of money by cooking and drinking at home and that the experience of going out had sort of become monotonous.

We were facing an uphill battle of pandemic limitations and lifestyle changes, and we needed to find a way to bring people out again once things started to settle down. It seemed like the people in our market wanted to spend their time and money at a place that not only had great food and drinks but also provided a unique and meaningful experience. We started to hold events and workshops – mostly things that we weren’t seeing in the area that we knew people liked. We were having bands play that were different from the brewery norm, like Funk, Jazz, and Bluegrass. We began hosting monthly Drag Brunches, Bingo, and Comedy. Workshops have always been important to us so that we can collaborate with local vendors and businesses that we enjoy personally. We quickly became a place for experiences, not just a bite and a beer. Any place can serve you a tasty burger and beer, but does it create a lasting memory?

In addition to giving our customers a good experience, it was even more important for me to foster a healthy work environment for our team. From day one, we outsourced a Human Resource team to ensure that our employees can get help if they feel uncomfortable in any way. To offset gas prices, we offer a company public transportation card through MARTA. We try our best to always lend an ear or a hand and to solve problems as quickly as possible once an employee brings something to our attention. Fixing problems lets employees know that they are actually being heard and adding value to the company. The restaurant & beer industries have a long history of toxicity, and we are doing our best to prevent that from being an issue.

With supply chain issues and the never ending battle of waste, Our brewmaster Josh Watterson does a  fantastic job at keeping things environmentally friendly yet financially feasible for a new small business like us. Josh now purchases nearly 100% of our malt from Carolina Malthouse, so our carbon footprint has reduced significantly with shorter shipping distances. He also switched our packaging tops to compostable tops, which has greatly reduced our plastic use.

With our beer program, our “Cause Series” seeks to raise money for causes we are passionate about supporting. We release a beer quarterly, partnering with different non for-profit organizations: Landscape lager – purchasing carbon captures; Boobie Beer – Breast Cancer research; Save the Sacks – Testicular Cancer research. Brave Noise – funding to facilitate diversity in craft beer; Grant Park Menagerie – funding to support the work of the Grant Park Conservancy. We have some other fun ones ahead! As a small business coming out of the pandemic, we are not profiting yet, but it is important to us to contribute in the few ways we can afford to.

As you know, we’re big fans of Elsewhere Brewing . For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Elsewhere is a culmination of some of our favorite experiences and places at breweries from around the world. Without good people, delicious food, and welcoming spaces, beer lost much of its beauty. In other words, a beer alone can be tasty; however, a beer alongside a wholesome plate of food, enjoyed while sitting in a comfortable seat next to a friendly neighbor and helpful bartender is a memorable experience. We found a major need for this in Atlanta.

With that said, our number one focus is customer experience. We offer a beer program that offers a diverse portfolio of beers. From European-style light lagers to West Coast-style IPAS, to wine like Sours and dark rich ales, we really try and offer something for everyone. Don’t like any beer? We also have a limited cocktail program that features classic cocktails like dirty martinis and old fashioneds (must try our killer G&T) to please other pallets.

Often our food said to stand out from most breweries. Our kitchen team has a strong appreciation for seasonal produce, regional fair and great cuts of meat that have inspired our menu in the taproom, our private events menu and our very fun and creative monthly Sunday Supper Event.

Outside of food and bev, we have a lot of Events as I mentioned earlier! We are frequently partnering with local nonprofits to raise money through events like Bingo (Spice girls Drag Bingo this month!) Drag Brunches, beer releases, artist showcases, and other fun seasonal events. We have bluegrass, funk and jazz bands on weekends. We also throw a handful of late-night parties each year that – most recently, we had a themed Studio 54 Night, and coming up with are having a Halloween party to celebrate our 2nd Anniversary.

We host a lot of educational workshops like mushroom foraging events, beer study groups, mead fermentation. We always have something going on!

We are also taking a group of guests to Patagonia, Argentina in 2023 – to carry our values of curiosity and travel outside of Atlanta.

It was crucial to design an open-air and cozy space that felt different than your traditional brewery. We wanted to attract more women and make it feel welcoming to all people. We sourced furniture and tile through mutual friends in Oaxaca and also worked with local wood makers and plasterers to create our bar. I get a lot of comments that it has a New Mexico vibe.

I believe all these components come together to really set us apart from every other brewery, not just in GA but across the country. To bring all these components together and form an organic cohesion really makes me proud of our team. It could have easily become eclectic and overwhelming, but with all the thought and effort involved, it came together beautifully.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Pivoting in your career always feels like a huge risk that a lot of people are too uncomfortable to take. I believe risk is the biggest barrier to Entrepreneurship.

I worked in restaurants for eight years and dreamed about the stability of a nine-to-five while in college. When I moved from Chicago to Seattle, the marketing job market was incredibly difficult to break into right out of college. I had two internships under my belt and a degree, yet I couldn’t get an interview at any of the five firms in Seattle. After five months of job searching in my new home, I felt depleted. I began serving again – at a cocktail bar with very toxic management – and began to hate the serving industry even more. As this was happening, my husband was deployed to Afghanistan. It was a very depressing period in my life.

Six months later, I finally landed a job in the marketing industry, which became my breakthrough. I freelanced in branding at a firm and left soon for a salaried job at a branding firm with a team of very kind and passionate leaders. I became even more fascinated with branding and learning how much you can change a consumer’s perspective of your product with rebranding.

Unfortunately, my commute was tiresome – four hours by bus every day – and a monotonous schedule behind a desk was not what I had been dreaming of. Sam was also in a military accident shortly after I began, which changed the trajectory of his own career path and plans. Throughout this time, our interest in craft beer was growing, and we started to think that maybe we could have a place in the industry.

After about a year at my marketing job, I saw a brewery was opening behind our apartment… I came home that day with a wild idea: to get back into the hospitality industry and learn about working in craft beer. My husband was perplexed considering that it took so long to find the job in the first place! Despite this, I decided to risk quitting my marketing job and get into the craft beer industry in hopes of finding something that would ignite my passion. Beer was looking like a great opportunity at the time and all the education and experience was at our fingertips.

Two months later, I was walking into the taproom as the Assistant General Manager, feeling like I was in college again, learning so many new things in the familiar industry of hospitality. I made some phenomenal friends, learned a lot of great things that I’ll have with me forever, and also learned a lot of things I’ll never do! I left that job knowing I wanted to own and operate a brewery, and I wanted to do it differently, and I knew Sam and I were capable of doing it.

Risk is essential to making a better life for yourself. Change & growth is never comfortable and is always a risk. You will fail at some of the risks you take, but with those wins and losses, you’ll find opportunities that would never have come your way otherwise. You must begin taking small risks for small rewards in order to someday build up to larger risks and larger rewards.

Contact Info:

• Website: elsewherebrewing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elsewherebrewing/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elsewherebrewingco/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/elsewhere-brewing-atlanta

Image Credits
Peter Murray Dessa Lohrey
Chil & Co: