Rabid Brewing Is Dreaming & Doing

By David Nilsen

Big things are happening at Rabid Brewing in Homewood, Illinois. The small brewery that opened in a small industrial strip behind a home improvement box store in 2017 is about to make a move to a much larger space at a time when many breweries are tightening their belts. For husband and wife co-founders Tobias Cichon and Raiye Rosado, it was either bet big on themselves, or cash in their chips and head home.

“Any further tightening we did would result in death,” said Tobias in a call with the pair this morning. “We’re seeing other people doing exactly that and they end up closing shop. We needed to make some moves that would expand a lot of what we’re doing.”

At last night’s Village of Homewood city council meeting, Rabid’s letter of interest in redeveloping an existing structure at the corner of 183rd and Kedzie Avenue was approved. The 12,000 square-foot strip mall is in poor condition, and the village—who currently owns the property—has been struggling to figure out what to do with it for years. 

“This is the result of a years-long professional relationship with our municipality,” said Raiye. “We have shown up for them when they’ve asked us to, and when we went to them and said we might have to move [Rabid] out of town, they were quick to say ‘Let’s find a solution.’ There was a surprising amount of gushy love coming from that dais [during the council meeting].”

Rabid now has 90 days to hammer out a redevelopment agreement. Their goal is to open in the new space as early as June, though they’re realistic about the potential for delays, and how much the city will be able to financially assist with the rehab is still up in the air. The move will see Rabid occupy 6,000 square feet of the building, with other commercial tenants in the remaining spaces. 

Mural by artist Annabelle Popa that hangs behind the bar in Rabid’s current taproom.

The new location will have a full commercial kitchen, family dining area, taproom, private event space, and patio—all except the taproom representing new offerings and opportunities for the brewery. All of the interior spaces will be modular, allowing them to open into each other or be closed off depending on event or operational needs.

“I feel really excited about the opportunity to start over in a sense,” said Raiye. “There were certain needs our customers had that we couldn’t antiticpate at the beginning [in our current space]. I get a request for private event space probably once a week, but in our existing taproom, that really doesn’t work.”

While there’s a certain bittersweetness to leaving the small space they’ve called home for over six years, they’ll be bringing some of it with them—the well-worn wooden bar top they rescued from a former Homewood bar will be installed in the new taproom. And yes, despite the larger space and a higher traffic location, they’ll still be hosting Sumo Saturdays with grand sumo matches on the big screen every Saturday night.

The brewery will brew many of its beers at the new location, but will transition to contract brewing for a handful of its core offerings. Whether the existing brew system will make the move to the new facility or a new, larger one will be installed has yet to be determined.

The move will also mean changing roles for Raiye and Tobias as well. The life of a small business owner means wearing a lot of hats every single day (check out the story in Final Gravity Issue 01 by Fibonacci Brewing’s Betty Bollas to understand what I mean), and the pair recognize they’ll have to change how they approach management responsibilities now that the business is growing. 

“We’ve been so hands-on,” said Tobias. “Just this week I was scrubbing the bathrooms, and I can’t imagine that will be happening anymore with the amount of labor this will take. We’ll have to operate at a higher level.”

There’s been a lot of bad news in craft beer lately, with changing consumers tastes, shifting market challenges, and the ongoing impact of the pandemic leading to brewery closure announcements every week. Raiye and Tobias are going all-in and growing to do more than survive—they want to thrive. The brewery started as a dream the pair discussed on their honeymoon years ago, and it’s one they still believe in. Given the choice between going big or going home, they’re doing both and going Homewood.

“I thought you might like to see some happy news for once,” Raiye told me when she first shared the news privately last week, in advance of the council meeting. She was right, and I’m excited for what’s ahead for my friends at this small brewery in the south suburbs of Chicago. 

“We’re still making beer and telling stories through beer,” she added this morning. “The magic can happen anywhere we are.”

All photos by David Nilsen.