Terry Redmond, co-owner of Kensington’s BabyCat Brewery, is optimistic the forthcoming downtown Bethesda outpost of the beerhouse will be open to the public in July, he told Bethesda Today recently.
The Bethesda brewery at 4850 Rugby Ave. in the Woodmont Triangle neighborhood will be BabyCat Brewery’s second location. BabyCat Brewery first opened at 10241 Kensington Parkway in November 2022. The Bethesda location, called BabyCat Brewery + Kitchen, also will feature a kitchen where patrons can order and pick up food.
The brewery’s name is based on co-founder Sam Mussomeli’s cat Alice, a.k.a., “Baby Cat,” a small cat “who never really grew,” Mussomeli told Bethesda Today in 2022. The feline’s face is the brewery’s logo and can be seen on murals around the Kensington location. BabyCat Brewery is run by co-founders Mussomeli and Redmond, as well as business manager Kerry Pratt and head brewer Philip Zanello.
On April 25, Bethesda Today got a sneak peek of the 4,400-square-foot space and spoke with Redmond about the progress of the construction.
“We are finally moving really quickly,” Redmond said. “As we’ve kind of spent more time down here and got to really ingrain ourselves with the local community, we are so excited about it.”
The buildout of the space is about 20% to 25% complete, Redmond said. The owners hoped to open the Bethesda location by March or April, but a 19-week permitting process with the county set them back, he noted.
“If we’re not impeded through permitting or licensing, stuff like that, then we’ll fly through the rest of this,” Redmond said.
Currently, the space is in construction mode with equipment and materials lining an unfinished concrete floor with spray-painted lines that show where the 30-seat bar will be assembled. Installed dry walls await paint and décor and a tall arch separating the brewhouse area from the taproom is nearly complete.
Redmond said designers planned for the archway, which will be covered in red brick, to provide patrons with a view into BabyCat’s brewing space and represent the archways created by tunnels along the Capital Crescent Trail. Outside, a colorful mural with the BabyCat logo has been painted onto the side of the building facing Rugby Avenue. The mural was created by Washington, D.C., muralist Nicole Bourgea, who also painted a mural on the façade of the brewery’s Kensington location, Redmond said.
When complete, the brewery will have a large outdoor seating area on a pedestrian walkway plaza that sits between two residential apartment buildings on Rugby Avenue, according to Redmond. The outdoor space will have picnic tables, various types of seating and space for children to play and dogs to lounge.
“We’re hoping to bring a lot of energy and activity to this area, where people who live in these apartments, you know, have a place to go and … bring your kids and your dogs,” Redmond said, referring to the multiple large apartment buildings nearby.
BabyCat Brewery & Kitchen also will feature garage doors that can be opened to create a breezy atmosphere inside, Redmond said. The garage doors are a special feature of the brewery’s Kensington location, formerly an auto shop for about 50 years.
The idea to open the Bethesda space stemmed from conversations with Bethesda-based Donohoe Cos., which owns the Rugby Avenue building and had been looking for a tenant to fill the vacant ground-floor retail space, Redmond told Bethesda Today in August.
As BabyCat Brewery & Kitchen moves closer to opening, Redmond said the brewery is trying to engage with the neighboring community and has hosted happy hours on the rooftops of nearby apartment buildings.
While standing outside, envisioning what the outdoor dining plaza would look like, a resident of one of the buildings called out to Redmond while walking by.
“We are so excited for you to open!” she said, noting that she planned to attend a happy hour at her building on May 1.
BabyCat Brewery will be filling a hole in Bethesda’s brewery scene that was left after Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery closed in late April after nearly 30 years.
