The Glassboro based Bonesaw Brewery recently received local development approval in Monmouth County for their third New Jersey brewery location.
With an amazing success story in Southern New Jersey, Bonesaw is “taking the show on the road” and heading farther north for location number three! But first a recap of their amazing achievements, and how it likely lead them to the Central Jersey location.
When the original Glassboro facility opened in 2018, “out of the gate” it was instantly one of New Jersey’s largest brewery facilities, crafting amazing beers and offering an incredible indoor/outdoor tasting room experience… which quickly placed Bonesaw as one of the top breweries and tasting rooms for New Jersey and the Philadelphia area.
Customers flocked to the original Mullica Hill Road brewery and at the time most likely didn’t realize that this was just the start for the Bonesaw team… which is lead by Co-Owners Rich DiVerniero and Dave Doe.
Within a few years of their initial opening, the Glassboro facility saw two large expansions; the build-out of the beautiful 2nd floor Lager Loft tasting room and event space, as well as an expansion to the core brewery facilities which added additional production capacity and warehousing. (Lager Loft Article)
Bonesaw’s achievements with the Glassboro brewery facility alone are enough to consider Bonesaw an amazing brewery success story! If that is all they did, everyone would be impressed. But even bigger plans were in process…Multiple locations!
Last September Bonesaw opened an all-new second Gloucester County brewery location, in the Deptford Mall.
Called the Bonesaw Pilot House, the concept is to offer a few of the top Bonesaw favorites, but also have an opportunity to “pilot” new craft beer recipes, in an airplane themed tasting room design. (Pilot House Article)
In fact following that “Piloting of new beer” theme, just a few weeks ago Bonesaw Pilot House released two new beers; Sun Time (American Style Wheat) and Zero Visibility (Hazy IPA) (Facebook Post)
The home of their second location, the Deptford Mall… is owned by Macerich, who on their website lists ownership of 45 large shopping centers/malls.
Apparently that business relationship has worked out well for both parties, as the third Bonesaw location will be located at…
Bonesaw Brewing – Freehold Raceway Mall
The third Bonesaw Brewing location will be in the Freehold Raceway Mall which is located in the Western end of Monmouth County… which I think most agree is Central Jersey.
The new location will put them about 16 miles from the famed Asbury Park boardwalk! This would be about an Hour and 15 minutes from the flagship Glassboro brewery, and only an hour to Manhattan!
The Freehold Planning Board meeting took place on March 21st, where the plans to convert an empty space on an outside entrance to the Freehold Mall into an almost 7,000 square foot brewery and tasting room were approved.
The unit they are taking over was previously a Kirkland store which closed in 2020. The mall entrance here is inset, so the future Bonesaw Brewery location is at a corner featuring two exterior walls where mall customers will walk past regularly to enter the shopping center.
The website for the Freehold Raceway Mall already shows Bonesaw Brewing as “Coming Soon” on the store directory map. Additionally a Freehold Raceway Mall market profile created in 2023 had already listed Bonesaw as a future tenant.
Inside the corner unit, the space will be divided into a 2,100 square foot brewery portion and the indoor tasting area will be 4,800 square feet .
The new Freehold location will feature a 15 BBL brewery system, which is the same size system that they utilize in Deptford.
The exterior of the former home decor store already has a distinctive and attractive look to it, and Bonesaw will not be making changes to the facade, other than adding their signage, two small outdoor spaces and awnings.
As mentioned the unit sits on a corner of an inset entranceway to the mall, which gives it two exterior walls of glass. Each of those two exterior walls will have fenced in outdoor seating areas; one containing 425 square feet and the other 455 square feet.
The full height glass windows will be replaced by vertical articulating window doors, to provide access between the indoor and outdoor spaces.
The Asbury Park press covered this story as it headed to Planning and in their article at AOL.com they have a rendering of the exterior. I have a call into the Planning Board to also have the renderings.
As is the case with most other breweries in New Jersey, Bonesaw will not be operating a kitchen in Freehold, but is fully supportive of customers bringing in their own food to dine within the brewery drinking delicious Bonesaw Beers. The Freehold mall features several restaurants where customers will be able to purchase food to-go and head over to Bonesaw!
The already open Deptford Mall location features a well themed tasting room based around the “pilot” concept, which even includes a small airplane suspended from the ceiling!
For Freehold, within the submitted planning documents there is no indication to the theme of the planned facility other than “supports an aesthetic of early 1900s industrial era” related to the new exterior window/doors… but I don’t know if that’s just a general description used by one individual or if it’s a clue to the theme of the brewery tasting room.
Last week I spoke with partner Dave who further confirmed the plans for the brewery, but at the time was not in a position to provide additional details such as theming or timelines.
While Freehold is outside of the 42Freeway coverage area, because of Bonesaw’s connection to Glassboro I’ll be following along with the progress!
Links and Location
Bonesaw Brewing Freehold (Coming Soon)
Freehold Raceway Mall
3710 US-9
Freehold, NJ 07728