With the blessing of Pabst, The 33 Room is ready to honor Peoria Heights' brewing history

PEORIA HEIGHTS — What’ll you have?

At The 33 Room, the drink of choice will be Pabst Blue Ribbon — true to its long-ago advertising slogan.

The refurbished bar, expected to open unofficially in early 2022, is in a building that was headquarters of a Peoria Heights complex where Pabst beers were brewed for almost 50 years.

But The 33 Room is to be more than a shrine to all things PBR. Craft cocktails are to be a primary staple of the bar once open to Pabst management and visitors, who ended their brewery tours there with a round or three.

“(We) want this space to keep its historical roots and also turn it into a destination for cocktails,” said Dustin Crawford, a 33 Room co-owner. “Where you can go and get something that’s quality, always changing, isn’t reliant on just ‘I make the best old fashioned in town.’”

Still, a lot of old-fashioned ways are key components of The 33 Room.

Brewery closing came amid tough times around Peoria

Named for the number of brews blended to form Pabst Blue Ribbon, the lounge opening is to come 40 years after the Peoria Heights brewery began to close.

Then based in Milwaukee, Pabst cited excess Midwestern brewing capacity among reasons to eliminate its facility at 4541 N. Prospect Road. At the time of its 1982 shuttering, about 700 people worked there.

Pabst opened its Heights brewery not long after the end of Prohibition in 1933. The facility’s closing came amid a rough economic period in the Peoria area.

The Hiram Walker distillery in Peoria, another cornerstone of a robust local booze-making tradition, closed for good in 1981. Caterpillar Inc. was laying off thousands of local employees.

“Unfortunately, when it closed, Peoria Heights suffered badly financially,” 33 Room co-owner Kip Rodier said about the brewery. “A lot of its employees had to relocate. That part was terrible, but it was such a rich history.”

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The former Pabst administration building now houses various businesses and offices. More recently, the former 33 Room played host to a jewelry store.

Crawford, Rodier and Robbie Mathisen — a Heights native and entrepreneur — helped return The 33 Room to its former luster.

“All these other spaces have no connection, really, to Pabst,” Crawford said about the building. “We were happy to bring this back before someone tried to get rid of the history that’s still here.”

Display case is filled with Pabst-related memorabilia

New tables and chairs, wall murals and a fresh paint job augment the original wooden bar and back bar. The distinctive PBR logo is prominent.

Mounted on one wall is a display case that features Pabst-related items collected by Rodier, a Chillicothe resident, and fellow beer historian Jim Searle of Pekin. Among those items is a Pabst Blue Ribbon can from the brewery’s final day of operation.

Current Pabst representatives have given The 33 Room their blessing, according to Crawford.

The bar always is to have PBR available on tap, but Crawford is a craft-cocktail connoisseur. He’s been a bartender at various Peoria-area establishments. Wine and craft beers also are to be part of the drink menu.

Crawford envisions The 33 Room as a good fit along the Heights restaurant row on Prospect Road. Among its existing occupants is another of Mathisen’s primary concerns, Pour Bros. Craft Taproom.

“Plenty of very small businesses that do niche things that you can’t find anywhere else — we love that,” Crawford said.

‘I haven’t had PBR since I lost my job here’

The 33 Room is to be open to the public when it isn’t booked for special events, according to Crawford. Weekends are likely to be a prime public time.

An official grand opening is planned for March 3 (3/3, naturally). Several open houses already have been held. One of them attracted a couple of 20-somethings familiar with Pabst Blue Ribbon’s current status as an affordable, hipster-oriented beer.

“They said, ‘What a neat Pabst thing,’” Rodier said. “Me and Dustin were (saying), ‘I don’t think they know this was a brewery. They just think it’s a Pabst bar.’”

Other open-house guests knew better. Some once worked at the Heights brewery. Crawford and Rodier intend to offer special events for them, as well as for others interested in the building’s past.

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The 33 Room also might provide closure – better late than never – for some of those former Pabst workers. During the open houses, Crawford witnessed at least one example.

“One guy said, ‘I haven’t had PBR since I lost my job here,’” Crawford said. “I’m like, ‘You want one?’ He’s like, ‘You know what? I’ll have one.’

“It’s been long enough where some of those hard feelings are starting to die down, thankfully.”

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: The 33 Room to reopen in old Pabst Blue Ribbon plant in Peoria Heights