State College Sets Public Hearing for Buffalo Wild Wings Liquor License Transfer. Here’s How Similar Recent Requests Have Played Out

State College Borough Council will hold a public hearing on Aug. 5 for a request by Buffalo Wild Wings to transfer a liquor license for its first Centre County location.

The national restaurant and sports bar chain is planning to open a location in the Maxxen , 131 Hiester Street in downtown State College. The restaurant liquor license would be acquired and transferred from the former Don Patron Mexican Grill, which closed its restaurant 1653 N. Atherton St. in Patton Township in 2017 and has held the license in safekeeping.

Buffalo Wild Wings appears as if it would occupy two levels at the South Garner Street and Calder Way corner of the Maxxen. The company's public relations office and a commercial real estate agent for the building did not respond to requests for comment.

Following the public hearing, council will likely discuss the matter at an Aug. 12 work session and render a decision on Aug. 19 to meet the 45-day deadline required by the Pennsylvania Liquor Code.

Borough Manager Tom Fountaine gave a brief overview of the process during council's work session on Monday, though he did not get into specifics of Buffalo Wild Wings' application. A representative for the restaurant will have an opportunity to present testimony at the public hearing, when Fountaine and Police Chief John Gardner will also make recommendations for conditions of the license.

Per borough ordinance, council will be tasked with deciding whether the transfer “would adversely affect the welfare, health, peace and morals of the Borough of State College or its inhabitants,” standard language used around the commonwealth for liquor license decisions, reflecting the intent of the state liquor code.

If a transfer is denied, the applicant can appeal the decision to the Court of Common Pleas. Results of such cases statewide have varied, but some courts have found a municipality cannot deny a transfer without reason and must show evidence that approval would adversely affect the community.

WHY BOROUGH COUNCIL HAS A SAY

Because most counties are above the state's quota of one restaurant liquor license per 3,000 residents, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board can't simply issue new licenses. So most establishments that don't already have one acquire them by auction of expired licenses or by transferring an existing license. Both can be expensive: The highest bid at a PLCB auction in 2022 was $460,000 for a license in Chester County, and an attorney for Brothers Bar & Grill indicated the business paid "mid-six figures" for a license transferred to the restaurant's downtown State College location.

The Pennsylvania Liquor Code was amended in 2000 and 2002 to allow for intermunicipal license transfers within a county, largely to allow licenses to move from overstocked older areas to growing communities where restaurants and bars wanted to open. It requires, however, the receiving municipality’s approval when it has more than one restaurant liquor license per 3,000 population.

While State College’s numbers have fluctuated, it has always been above the quota during that time, and as of 2023 had 1.8 per 3,000 people, with 23 restaurant liquor licenses. In total, the borough had 42 retail establishments selling alcohol under various kinds of licenses. Contiguous businesses with the same owner can operate under a single license. For example, the Hotel State College establishments at the corner of College and Allen all operate under a single hotel liquor license.

The municipal approval requirement has allowed the borough to attach conditions to license transfers in the form of a legally binding agreement. Seeking to prevent more establishments predominantly geared toward drinking, the borough historically has done so, though those have varied in recent years.

In recommending restrictions, borough administrators and police chiefs have cited alcohol-related crime statistics. Gardner said last year, when council was considering two license transfers, that the average number of police calls to establishments with a retail liquor license is 16 times greater than all other borough properties, and six times greater for bars than restaurants. He also estimated that two-thirds of all crime in the borough is in some way alcohol-related.

In total, council has approved seven liquor license transfers, including three in the past five years, with conditional agreements. Some restrictions have been consistent, such as only allowing alcohol sales when food is able for purchase or prohibiting the transfer of the license to another property in the borough without council approval. Others, most significantly restrictions on food-to-alcohol sales ratios, have been contentious and varied.

Here's what transpired with the last three transfer requests.

2019 — QUEENSTOWN RESTAURANT

AKE Enterprises, led by State College natives Martin and Deanna Gillespie, applied in 2019 to transfer a liquor license into the borough for Queenstown, a planned New Zealand-themed restaurant in the former location of Spats Cafe and Speakeasy in the Foster/Gentzel Building at the corner of East College Avenue and South Pugh Street.

Up until that point, the borough had approved four liquor license transfers and each came with restrictions — most notably a requirement that 75% or 80% of revenues come from food sales. Tom King, who at the time was assistant borough manager, recommended that Queenstown be required to have 65% to 35% food-to-alcohol revenue ratio.

As has been a common theme, King said the concern was not with the plans presented by the Gillespies, but what the location could become in the future if the license was unrestricted.

Martin Gillespie promised an upscale restaurant based on other Queenstown restaurants he was a partner in in San Diego that catered more to families and professionals than students, and he wanted to be able to offer high-end wine and liquor without worrying about how a $200 bottle of wine with a $50 meal would skew the percentages. He also said he wanted to run a restaurant that offered breakfast, lunch and dinner and had no interest in operating a student bar.

Council ultimately approved the transfer without any restriction on the ratio of food to alcohol sales. It did approve several other conditions: The license could not be transferred to another entity in the borough without council approval; it was limited to the three street addresses of the restaurant with the possible exception of expanding in the future to another portion of the Foster/Gentzel Building.; alcohol sales would not be permitted when food was not available; and the facility could not be rented out to a third party.

Queenstown, however, never opened. AKE Enterprises and building owner Cornelius LLC, led by Charles and Neil Herlocher, have been embroiled in a legal dispute since 2021.

The Gillespies claimed they were led to believe the leased spaces were one contiguous property but learned from Centre Region Code Administration that was not the case and their construction plans were all deferred or denied without substantial additions. They stopped paying rent in 2021 and filed a lawsuit.

The Herlochers say it was plainly obvious the spaces were not contiguous. They evicted the Gillespies, countersued and are seeking back rent as well as $300,000 for restoring the space that was gutted during renovations. Both lawsuits are still pending.

In addition to damages, the Gillespies asked for the Herlochers to be required to buy the liquor license, which was acquired from the former Celebration Hall in College Township, for $300,000.

The liquor license is listed in the PLCB database as having expired in January.

Connecticut-based Riko's Pizza , meanwhile, announced in May plans for a location in the former Spats and expects to open in the fall. The restaurant will have a full bar, a company representative told StateCollege.com. It's not clear where the license is coming from.

2023 - BROTHERS BAR & GRILL

When Brothers Bar & Grill developed plans to open its first Pennsylvania location in 2023 at 134 S. Allen St., the Midwest-based sports bar and restaurant chain secured a deal to acquire the liquor license from the former Westerly Parkway location of Fuji & Jade Garden, which did not seek to relocate the license when it moved from Westerly to the Northland Center in Ferguson Township.

A liquor license transfer within the borough ordinarily would not require council approve, but Fuji & Jade Garden’s license was subject to a conditional license agreement from when it was transferred in 2006 from the former Hummingbird Room in Spring Mills.

Brothers requested that the Fuji & Jade conditional agreement — which included, among other restrictions, an 80-20 food-to-alcohol revenue ratio, a limit of 10 bar seats and no alcohol sales after 11:30 p.m. — be rescinded and replaced with a new agreement for the transfer.

Again citing alcohol-related crime, conditions proposed by Fountaine and Gardner included, among others, a 60-40 food-to-alcohol revenue ratio, a 22-ounce limit on alcoholic drink sizes and a prohibition on alcohol discounts and advertising.

Owners Marc and Eric Fortney, who said all of their other restaurants had unrestricted licenses, balked at their proposal, particularly the food-to-alcohol ratio. Marc Fortney said that when presented with the conditions in a private meeting with Fountaine and Gardner prior to a public hearing , he “actually wanted to get up and walk out.”

“We never asked to purchase a license with a restriction because we know it’s very, very difficult to meet that restriction,” Marc Fortney said at the public hearing. “A cheeseburger basket is $10 and today’s craft beers are $8. If someone’s there for a couple hours watching a game at a sports bar … we want them to squat, we want them to stay and be part of the environment... But you can’t stay there over an hour and have more than one beer because we would be over the limit."

Council approved by a 5-1 margin the license transfer without a food-to-alcohol ratio but instead included a “food stipulation.” Brothers agreed that the size and scope of its menu will not change, essentially ensuring that the establishment will not transform into a nighttime bar geared only toward college students.

The agreement also did not include restrictions on happy hours and drink specials, alcoholic beverage sizes or advertising of alcohol.

Council did approve conditions that alcohol sales will not be permitted when food sales are not available, and that no smoking will be permitted anywhere on the premises, both of which the Fortneys said they already planned. The license cannot be expanded beyond the premises or transferred to a third party or another location without council’s approval.

Brothers Bar & Grill opened its downtown State College location in February.

2023 - FIGO ITALIAN

After council declined to put a food-to-alcohol restriction on the previous two liquor license transfers, Gardner and Fountaine did not propose one when a Philadelphia-based ownership group submitted a transfer application for the planned Figo Italian restaurant at The Standard, 330 W. College Ave.

This time, though, council went in the other direction, making a 60-40 food-to-alcohol ratio part of the conditional agreement for the license, which was transferred from the former Luna 2 Woodgrill & Bar in College Township.

Tim Lu, one of Figo Italian’s owners and a Penn State graduate, told council during a public hearing that he expected at least 70% of revenue would come from food. Attorney Mark Kozar, who also represented Brothers and has worked on many other transfers in Centre County, said prior to the approval that his clients in this case did not object to the condition.

“I personally don’t like food-beverage percentage,” Kozar said. “However, in this case, my client is fine with it because they are doing 75-25, so I have no opposition to it. That doesn’t mean that next time I’m up here I wouldn’t oppose it.”

Figo is planned to be an "upscale" Italian restaurant with a bar and separate side for a fast casual pizza counter, Kozar said at the public hearing. The ownership group, which owns and operates multiple restaurants in the Philadelphia area under GLU Hospitality , including the only current Figo restaurant , also plans to open a breakfast and lunch spot called Bagels & Co. with no alcohol service in a separate space at The Standard.

Council members said they weren't particularly concerned about Figo, but several worried about not having a guiding vision for how to handle liquor license transfers into the borough.

Other conditions of the transfer agreement include: alcohol sales not permitted when food is not available for purchase; alcoholic beverages can be sold in containers no larger than 22 ounces; and the license cannot be expanded beyond the approved premises or transferred to another owner or location within the borough without approval by council.

Figo Italian and Bagels & Co. have not yet opened, though work on the spaces has been ongoing.

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