How Birdtown Brewing Brought a Historic Lakewood Church Back to Life

Lakewood’s story is written in its buildings. The city’s streets, lined with charming century homes and brick commercial buildings, trace the town’s growth. All told, 80% of Lakewood’s structures are 90-plus years old, but the city has an outstanding record of historic preservation, with businesses, homeowners and civic organizations repurposing aging buildings and maintaining Lakewood’s architectural legacy. 

Sometimes, saving a historic building means a complete reimagination. That’s the case for Birdtown Brewing. The long-gestating project (plans were first announced in 2014) converted the 101-year-old St. Gregory Theologian Byzantine Catholic Church from a house of worship to a one-of-a-kind destination and, as General Manager Ryan Grammerstorf attests, a community gathering spot. 

“We’ve been getting a lot of people who were either married here, have parents who were married here or went to church here,” he says. “There’s a lot of good history.”

Those stories are shared in a lofty space that pairs ecclesiastical architecture with an Irish pub vibe. Original features like dark wooden ceiling beams, ornate pendant lamps, Gothic arches and saturated paint hues merge the sacred with the secular. Other elements, like the stained-glass windows, had to be recreated, due to church officials removing them when the parish closed.

Converting the space to include the robust infrastructure that brewpubs require was also a challenge. “There were really no utilities, because you don’t need a ton for a church,” Grammerstorf says. 

Despite difficulties, the ownership group let the church’s architecture lead design decisions.

“We let the building dictate what we wanted to do,” Grammerstorf says. “The first thing that we saw was that we wanted the brewhouse to be on the altar.”

In addition to the main pub, Birdtown boasts event space in the choir loft, a seasonal patio and an overflow room in the church basement. The latter space contains another nod to local history — bar tops and tables made from wood reclaimed from Lakewood High School’s gymnasium. 

Grammerstorf says he loves how Birdtown Brewing has already nested into the Lakewood community. 

“Everybody who has been through the doors so far has been giving us nothing but praise,” he says. “We’re very excited.”