Long-awaited Sobel's Obscure Brewery opening in Jeannette

The anticipation has been building for the past three years as Sobel’s Obscure Brewery chipped away at transforming an old Jeannette department store into a taproom.

It’s finally here — the Clay Avenue space is opening Friday.

Jackie Sobel, who co-owns the craft brewery with her father, David Sobel, said they’ve partnered with several Jeannette businesses to have food delivered to the taproom and create custom tiles in the bathrooms courtesy of AB Ceramics & More. City officials have seen interest in empty buildings along Clay Avenue in the time since the Sobels began their venture.

“It does kind of seem like we lit the match that ignited” other development, Jackie Sobel said. “I anticipate within the next five years the downtown is going to look very different.”

The brewery purchased the 12,000-square-foot former Gillespie Building from the Westmoreland County Land Bank in 2018. Sobel’s was founded in 2012 and began selling its product commercially five years later. It took longer than anticipated to complete the Jeannette taproom, which also houses brewing equipment run by head brewer Nick Weigand.

Sobel said the contractor, MC Maintenance, ran into supply chain issues and increased costs in the price of lumber along the way, but the delays allowed her to find the unique pieces to complete the space, including an antique refrigerator and old-fashioned phone and entry doors that once were part of a Squirrel Hill church.

After its life as a department store, the building more recently was an antique shop. Despite the antiques jam-packed into the building that were left behind for the Sobels to clean up, “We could see the opportunity right away,” Sobel said.

“It just seemed perfect,” she said.

Beer drinkers will find the building’s original flooring and a tin ceiling, which was cleaned and painted. Several chandeliers hang above unique brew house-style wooden tables, and the beer will flow from a custom tap system. There is space for 266 people on the first floor. Sobel said her vision for the vibe of the taproom is steampunk with industrial and Victorian influences, while pairing pieces of the established quirky, fun brand amid the existing architecture.

She hired seven people to work there.

Mayor Curtis Antoniak said the brewery opening is a big deal to the downtown area, and he expects it will be a draw to those inside and outside Jeannette.

“We’re so thankful to the Sobels. They really committed to the city,” he said.

Since the Sobels bought the building, at least six vacant neighboring buildings on Clay Avenue have been sold or are the site of new or upcoming business projects, fire Chief Bill Frye said. A bakery will be opening soon and a coffee shop is in the works, while Cafe Italiano opened earlier this year, among other ventures.

Frye has been in and out of the Sobels’ building during the renovations conducting inspections and billed it as the “safest building on Clay Avenue” because, in part, of the addition of a sprinkler system. It’s been a major undertaking for the father-daughter pair, one that the city appreciates, he said.

“It’s definitely a positive step forward to starting the revitalization downtown,” Frye said.

Food from local eateries and food trucks will be available as the taproom doesn’t have a kitchen, though Sobel said it is a possibility in the future. Additional phases of the project include an outdoor seating area in a vacant lot next door as well as overflow bar and banquet space on the second floor, which carry the potential for additional jobs.