Veteran restaurateur jumping into microbrewery biz

A local real estate firm and restaurant owner is marking its first foray into the burgeoning microbrewery business by opening Blind Owl Brewery on the city’s northeast side.

Lux Restaurants, a division of R.P. Lux Commercial Real Estate Services, is hoping Blind Owl can begin serving its beer and vittles by June 1. The microbrewery will feature 26 taps, including six dedicated to Blind Owl brews and 10 others to Indiana beer makers.

Blind Owl will be located in the Hawthorne Plaza strip center at East 62nd Street and Binford Boulevard that R.P. Lux bought out of foreclosure in 2013.

“This center was in really bad shape for a lot of years,” company founder Rick Lux said. “It was 50-percent vacant when we bought it.”

With last year’s addition of Pate’s Pool Service and Supply, and Blind Owl, the center will be 85-percent occupied, Lux said.

Blind Owl is taking 12,000 square feet on the south end last occupied by Entenmann’s bakery. The microbrewery has hired Alex Petersen, an assistant brewer at Thr3e Wise Men, to head brewing operations. Jason Hinton, formerly executive chef at the P.F. Chang’s downtown location, will lead Blind Owl’s culinary operations.

Offerings will include a lot of “scratch” food such as pizzas and beer-battered fish and chips made with the microbrewery’s beer.

A couple of interesting tidbits about Blind Owl: The microbrewery will produce its own honey from beehives to flavor its honey brown-style beers and will grow an herb garden to produce its own cilantros, both to be located on greenspace adjacent to the strip center.

Beer brewed at Blind Owl will be available at Lux’s other restaurants. They are: Binkley’s Kitchen & Bar in Broad Ripple; Broad Ripple Tavern; Elbow Room downtown; Meridian Restaurant & Bar on North Meridian Street; and Nickel Plate Bar & Grill in Fishers.