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The Ornery Beer Company is another brewery that will be opening in Prince William in July – but they plan to stand out for their offering of beer and food.
“We will be the first brewpub in Prince William County – meaning it is a restaurant with a brewery. The others ones that are in the county that are under construction – they’ll bring in food trucks…but they don’t have on-site restaurant services,” said Randy Barnette, the owner of the brewery.
Barnette, who is also the owner of the Hard Times restaurant locations, will put the brewery in the current Woodbridge Hard Times location – which has been open since 2001.
“The business has changed, the clientele has changed, and it was time to do something different…the lease came up here at the [Woodbridge] location of Hard Times, and it was either time to relocate it, close it down or make it something new and different,” said Barnette.
The brewery will have six beers to start, including the Ornery Blonde and the California Dreamin’ IPA, with plans to have 8 to 12 beers on-tap at all times in a few months.
According to Barnette, a chef announcement will be made soon, and he hopes to have a menu with dishes primarily made from scratch, including flatbreads, shareable appetizers, sandwiches and entrees.
“[We want] a non-standard menu that says ‘this is created by the chef’. That it changes every month, and is handmade…original and comfortable to eat in a community setting,” commented Barnette.
Additionally, Barnette acquired the space next door to the former Hard Times, and will be using that to expand and create another bar space.
Recently a vehicle crashed into the front of the location, but Barnette stated that the incident was not the reason behind the move from Hard Times to Ornery Brewery.
“This has been in the works for almost two years. We signed the lease with the landlord to make this transition a year and four months ago…all the accident did was to make a hole in the wall where we can bring in brewery equipment – it actually helped us out a little bit,” said Barnette.
