New brewery’s home in Audubon neighborhood has long business history

A new brewery is coming to Spokane’s Audubon neighborhood, renovating a building that was long home to a string of grocery stores before becoming a popular “hattery” that specialized in making custom cowboy hats.

For the Love of God Brewing, 2617 W. Northwest Blvd., is taking part of the space most recently used by the Little Rascals Children’s Center, according to permits issued by the city. Much of the work is renovating the building’s interior, said Steve Moss, the brewer who owns the business with his wife, Dawn Moss.

“We demoed out everything that’s in there,” said Moss, noting rafters and concrete block walls will remain exposed. Some interior framing is being installed, creating a common space apart from where the beer will be brewed. Inside, the building will have space for nearly 50 people, and an outdoor patio will have seating for an additional 20.

Moss, who worked in construction for 16 years, is doing the work on the project.

The taproom is expected to open sometime in July, and Moss said he’ll have up to eight beers on tap, plus small plates of food. Moss has been brewing beer for about six years and focuses on “fruited” and “adjunct” beers, which include fermentable sugars from sources other than malted barley, such as “cinnamon, lacto sugar, vanilla beans, and many other herbs, and natural flavors,” according to the brewery’s website.

“I don’t know if anybody in Spokane is doing quite what we are,” Moss said. “Whistle Punk is similar, but with the caveat that the majority of what they do is German-style.”

Other than downtown Spokane’s Whistle Punk Brewing, Moss said the best comparison is Great Notion Brewing and Barrel House in Portland, which he’s admired for years. For the Love of God’s website currently lists four beers ready to tap: First Fruits IPA; the Salt and the Light Gose, a sour beer; Through a Glass Dimly NEIPA, a unfiltered New England-style IPA; and a Raspberry Cheesecake Sour.

The 5,600-square-foot building – of which Moss is taking 1,150 square feet – was constructed in 1929, when a streetcar still ran down the boulevard.

In 1930, the first full year the building was open, it housed a number of businesses, including Audubon Food Shop, Frank Michael’s Meats, Spokane Hardware Co. No. 5, Kraut shoe repair and a barber named V.R. Eichwald.

While other businesses changed over the years, including a rotating cast of barbers and dentists, the Audubon Food Shop remained for decades. As part of the Red & White chain of independent grocery stores, the small shop was independently owned but connected to the large Red & White distribution network to compete with the larger grocery stores, which were becoming more common.

In 1965, the food shop was replaced by the Audubon Garden & Hardware Store and the Audubon Thrift Store, a grocery store By the 1980s, the Audubon Family Store, also a grocery store, was in the spot.

In 1986, the building was vacant except for the Pobody’s Nerfect Center and, in 1990, Mad Max’s Furniture.

In 1997, Wolf’s Hattery and Mercantile took the space, which operated there until 2011. According to a 2002 profile of the business, though the store carried “every lid but baseball caps – no top hats, this week – the broad-brimmed Gus favored by cowboys clearly tower over the subdued homburgs, Clark Kent fedoras, saucy bowlers and pugnacious oxfords on display.”

At its closing, a Spokesman-Review columnist said the “demise” of the hattery warranted “a word or two of eulogy,” noting, “This is no mere closure. This is the end of an era.”