Pouring craft beer and making pizzas isn’t exactly brain surgery. No one knows this better than Rebecca Lavenue.
The Chandler resident left a 24-year career in neurosurgery to open The Perch Pub & Brewery, one of the Valley’s most anticipated new venues of the year, this Friday on the southwest edge of downtown Chandler (map).
“If you ask 20 people if they’d like to open a bar, wouldn’t 19 of them say yes?” she asks. “I’ve always wanted a bar. I love craft beer.”
So she sold her company – she monitored patients during brain and back surgeries – and used the money to buy an old, run-down house with a lush patio shaded by mature trees next to Yoli’s Cafe.
“I walked in here and thought, ‘This doesn’t feel like Arizona,'” she says. One of the features that drew her attention was a flat roof she could convert into a rooftop patio (pictured below) like those she remembered in her hometown of Chicago.
“I’ve always wanted a rooftop because rooftops are pretty popular back home,” Lavenue says. “I’ve never seen an empty rooftop if there’s room to go up there.”
The grounds also included several large bird cages, some with birds. A rescue group asked if she would take another three birds – and ultimately brought a dozen.
“I’m not even a bird person,” Lavenue says. Between the birds and the rooftop patio, though, she came up with the perfect name for her place: The Perch.
“I like places like Casey Moore’s,” Lavenue says. “Just that feeling of sitting outside, having a beer while listening to your favorite acoustic music. That’s my vision of what I’d like to see.”
Since she has no experience in the food and beverage industry, Lavenue is relying on James Swann, one of the foremost figures in Arizona’s craft beer scene and a veteran manager of several Valley restaurants and bars, to run The Perch.
She also has enlisted the help of lifelong friend Sue Sechrest, who’s worked in the restaurant business, as a manager. Both Swann and Sechrest will own a piece of the business. (Pictured below, from left: Lavenue, Swann, and Sechrest)
The team hoped for a October 2013 opening, but construction delays and ongoing battles with city inspectors pushed it back several months, much to the dismay of The Perch’s 2,000-plus Facebook fans. But Lavenue is happy with the final results.
“I really like how the building turned out,” she says. “The industrial metal – I love that look. It’s all reclaimed materials. Alex, our builder, had the bricks in his backyard. The I-beams also came out of his backyard.”
The rustic interior features a pivoting wood-and-steel front door; three glass garage-style doors that open to the patio, where there’s a small stage; and stained glass windows behind the bar.
There are 34 beer taps – more than originally planned – including four on the rooftop patio Kegerators. Five taps eventually will be reserved for The Perch’s own beers, but brewer Andrew Bauman won’t have the three-barrel system up and running for at least two more weeks. See the opening-day beer list.
The menu similarly will be limited in the beginning: 10 appetizers, five salads, and four pizzas. George Jones, who worked at World of Beer and also ran his own hummus business, heads the kitchen. See the opening-day food menu.
As The Perch approaches its debut at 5 p.m. Friday – which also happens to be Valentine’s Day, the second-busiest day of the year for the restaurant industry – Lavenue admits she’s having some sleepless nights given the crowds expected.
“James isn’t nearly as nervous as I am,” she says. “I’m a nervous wreck.”
(Note: The Perch will be open for its soft opening from 5 p.m. to midnight this Friday and Saturday, and noon to midnight Sunday. It will host two Arizona Beer Week events Sunday – the end of the sold-out Brews Cruise and a tasting with The Bruery.)
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Photos: First look at The Perch Pub & Brewery
Photos: The Perch Pub & Brewery progressing
