Voodoo Brewery is opening a big restaurant on the North Shore this summer.
The brewery, which started humbly, founded in 2005 and selling its first beers in 2007 from a former cabinetry store and funeral home building in downtown Meadville, has steadily expanded to what’s now a big Meadville production brewery and five Pennsylvania pubs, including one in Homestead and an independently owned and operated one in New Kensington. It recently announced the coming, this summer, of another independent Voodoo pub in Houston, Washington County. There’s also a Voodoo pub in Cleveland, plus one coming to Las Vegas, and that’s just the beginning of a big national expansion, according to co-owner Jake Voelker.
But the North Shore Voodoo is “a big part of it,” he says, with a capacity of 193 guests inside and 100 outside. “We will have a significant amount of outdoor seating.”
The space, at 337 North Shore Drive, was Rivertowne North Shore until that Export brewery closed in 2018 after an eight-year run.
Voodoo will be neighbors with the new Shorty’s Pins x Pints, with which some fun events will be held, and is across the street from Southern Tier Brewery’s Pittsburgh brewpub.
Voodoo will have a full and typically “quirky” food menu, and customers will be able to order from their tables using their phones. The place will of course offer a full range of draft and packaged Voodoo beers, including Oh Mama, a collaboration with the band Styx that riffs on its song “Renegade” that’s popular during Steelers games at nearby Heinz Field.
This “gemstone” Voodoo-owned location is there not just for football, PNC Park baseball and other big events, Mr. Voelker says, but also for Pittsburghers who go there at other times.
“There is a lot of excitement,” he says. “We’re pretty fired up about this one.”
Voodoo launched an Instagram account for the new location @voodoopittsburgh.
Meanwhile, the Houston pub, Voodoo West Pike, will open later this year at 23 West Pike St. That’s just a block from Helltown Brewing’s taproom in that town.
Voodoo Brewery on Monday started selling tickets ($135) to its good vibes Beer Fest in Meadville on July 9. The event had been canceled in 2020 and 2021.
Learn more at voodoobrewery.com.
Bob Batz Jr.: bbatz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1930 and on Twitter and Instagram @bobbatzjr.
First Published: May 10, 2022, 3:48 p.m.
Updated: May 10, 2022, 4:19 p.m.
