Three families in Vero Beach are creating a unique entertainment complex that will combine barbecue, craft beer, pickleball and live music at an old citrus packing house.
Tom and Tiffany Corr, Alden and Valerie Bing, and John and Heather Chianis hope to open Hogan Yards by the end of the year in the former Hogan & Sons next to the Vero Beach Regional Airport and the railroad tracks by U.S. 1.
“It’s an iconic type of building in Florida, in the citrus industry, and they’re all getting torn down,” said Tom Corr. “It’s kind of nice to hold on to it.”
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The Bings, who created Orchid Island Brewery in 2014 , are bringing the beer. The Chianises, who opened Pepper & Salt BBQ in 2022 , are bringing the barbecue. And the Corrs are the property owners putting it all together.
“It’s been a long process,” said Tom Corr. “I’m super excited about it.”
Corr travels with his family every year, spending a couple weeks visiting areas that have included the Pacific Northwest, the Northwest and Hawaii.
During these trips, he and his family would find themselves going to breweries.
“They’re great for the young kids, and we could have great food,” Corr said. “Everything was happening at these places; they were like hubs of the community.”
He and his family went to the Rayback Collective in Boulder, Colorado, which was a renovated plumbing building with outdoor cornhole and food trucks. While their kids played, the Corrs sat and chatted with a Boulder couple in their 80s.
“We just had the best time,” Corr said. “It was an unbelievable experience of many age groups.”
Meanwhile, the Corrs had become friends with the Bings after they opened Orchid Island Brewery in the Portales de Vero building on Ocean Drive because Tom Corr worked at George E. Warren Corp. down the street. They started talking in 2016 about doing something in Vero Beach similar to the Rayback Collective.
“We’re young parents who can’t go to bars,” Corr said, “but we still want to have something to do that’s social.”
In 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Bings didn’t renew their lease for the brewery and taproom. Sailfish Brewing Co. of Fort Pierce opened its second brewery in that location a year later.
The Corrs became half-owners of Orchid Island with the Bings in 2021 and started contract brewing in Largo in the Tampa Bay area to keep the Indian River Grapefruit and Star Ruby IPAs flowing via distribution.
Tom Corr also created the Packing House Collective that year and bought the packing house at 2745 St. Lucie Ave., hoping to tie the history of the packing house with the citrus beer. The building was constructed in 1972 and is nearly 35,000 square feet, according to the Indian River County Property Appraiser’s website, but Corr said the size is smaller after renovations.
He’s installing new siding and a metal roof. The brewing equipment already is set up, and he hopes to start brewing in the next few months. The taproom will be air-conditioned.
The new restaurant will be a second location for the Chianises, who specialize in Central Texas-style barbecue, but the menu will be different from their first location at 308 Old Dixie Highway. The barbecue will be more a vehicle for other types of food, such as sandwiches and tacos.
Corr wants to build an outdoor area for yard games, concerts and events. He also wants to add covered pickleball courts but keep it casual play and more focused on community.
He’s commissioning murals on the building and collecting old memorabilia for decoration, including signs from the former Boudrias Groves Citrus in Fort Pierce and the former Poinsettia Groves in Vero Beach, now the future site of a Chick-fil-A restaurant .
The land for Hogan Yards is over 3 acres, backs up to Indian River Farms and has a strip along the canal that separates it from the airport. It still has a small grove planted in the back, and Corr plans to plant more citrus to create a buffer and make the concept more agritourism.
Corr, who moved to Vero Beach in 1989, still remembers the distinct citrus smell as a kid going through the groves and grabbing a big juicy orange from a tree.
“It’s sad that the citrus industry is in such decline, but maybe we can pay homage to it,” Corr said. “I really hope it becomes what the vision is in our heads.”
Laurie K. Blandford is TCPalm's entertainment reporter dedicated to finding the best things to do on the Treasure Coast. Email her at laurie.blandford@tcpalm.com . Sign up for her What To Do in 772 weekly newsletter at profile.tcpalm.com/newsletters/manage.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Coming soon: New entertainment complex combines BBQ, brewery, pickleball, live music
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