Picaroons Roundhouse (Adam Travis/The East)

Real Food Café Coming To Picaroons’ Roundhouse

Fredericton’s North Side has always been pretty exciting, but this week an announcement was made that’s making it just that much better. Picaroons and Real Food Connections will be partnering up for a new Roundhouse Café at Picaroons’ brewery in Devon.

Located at 912 Union Street, Picaroons opened their new brewery a little over half a year ago after a massive renovation of the Gibson Roundhouse. Designed by Acre Architects, the renovation along with the new addition looked like an impossibly huge facility when compared to their former industrial park and brewtique locations. Naturally, there was an outpouring of suggestions for what might be done with such an overabundance of space. There was talk of open community spaces, and bike-through growler fill-ups, performance halls, or maybe a regulation size roller-derby rink. Whispers of a canning operation could sometimes be heard, but that was probably just the owner.

Roundhouse Cafe (Adam Travis/The East)
Proposed location of your future lunches (Adam Travis/The East)

Ultimately much of that space went towards holding huge stacks of delicious beer, which they can’t really be faulted for. But that last bit of available space needed to be put to some good. Some hints were immediately available in the initial design: the finished space, the kitchen, the serving counter. It seemed an unlikely design for a pro shop.

What they will be offering is both the region-centric delicacies both Picaroons and Real Foods are known for. With an emphasis on lighter fare and grab-n-go items, it’s going to be the perfect spot for a pit-stop along Fredericton’s north side walking trail. The location will double as the Picaroons tasting room with rumours of there being somewhere in the vicinity of 10-14 beer taps, showcasing local beers, meads, and ciders. There will also be a growler filling station, and bottled beer on hand for purchase.

“We’re pretty excited about this new collaborative project with Picaroons in Fredericton,” says Real Food Connections owner Levi Lawrence. “We have always felt an affinity with the craft beverage sector as a whole and use many of their products often. We like to think of our retail snack creations, prepared meals and cafe offerings as ‘craft food’ made from scratch, made slower, made by hand.”

The café  will also be pairing with Whitney Coffee of Fredericton, and expect to be creating unique edibles products made with both locally sources founds, and Picaroons products.

Picaroons and their welcoming of other local beers and ciders its going to be a very collaborative example of NB food and beverage offerings… plus its beautiful and will be a great place to stop on the north side.”

As for their menu Lawrence says that, similar to their eatery in Saint John, the menu will not be a fixed list, but rather represent the local foods, often depending on seasonal availability, and the creativity of their team.

There will always be soup, grilled sandwiches, salads, snack foods, prepared meals and the such but for both locations we are working on new hot entrée ideas like Mac n Cheese, Hot Lunch ideas like meatballs on spaghetti, spare ribs, etc. We are also taking this opportunity to explore more beer-centric local food creations and have been experimenting with a beer mustard, beer bbq sauce, spent grain granola, spent grain breads, beer infused braised meats, pulled pork, and soups/stews. Our favourite creation so far is an 8 Day Picaroons Irish Red cured bacon made with local, free range pork belly… it’ll be one hell of a BLT.”

The Roundhouse Café opens December 2nd, 2017.

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