Walk down Ellsworth Road on a Friday night this month and you'll pass three separate doors where you can get a beer, all within shouting distance of each other. Three years ago there was one. A fourth, big enough to need its own zip code, is under construction a few blocks over on Munoz Street and expected to open before the year is out. That is not a coincidence of timing. It's what happens when a town spends several years quietly building the sidewalks before anyone else shows up to fill them.
If you've lived in Queen Creek for a while, you already know Old Ellsworth Brewing as the place that was here before any of this was a plan. What's changed is everything around it.
Old Ellsworth Started With a Homebrew Kit, Not a Business Plan
Old Ellsworth Brewing Company opened in 2017 as a partnership between Navy veteran Brian McKean and his brother-in-law Ryan Bostrom, two guys who had been home-brewing for years and noticed something odd: a town full of beer drinkers with no local brewery of its own. With backing from Brian's family and the town's Economic Development Commission, they launched the brewery at 22005 S Ellsworth Road, naming it after the Ellsworth family, the town's early agricultural pioneers.
The beer itself leans into that history. Several recipes use grains from nearby farms, olives from the Queen Creek Olive Mill, and peaches from Schnepf Farms, so the flavor profile is genuinely tied to what grows a few miles down the road. Nearly 20 beers rotate on tap, including an award-winning IPA that regulars order by habit, and the scratch kitchen, led by chef Robert Hudson, turns out gourmet burgers, Cajun pasta, and a build-your-own poutine that's become something of a house specialty.
For close to eight years, Old Ellsworth was doing this more or less alone. That's no longer true.
Then, in October 2025, the Same Owners Bet on the Same Street
The most telling detail about what happened next isn't that a new taproom opened. It's who opened it. When The Sacred Pint celebrated its grand opening on October 17, 2025 at 22022 S Ellsworth Road, the people behind it were the same owners who had co-founded Old Ellsworth back in 2017. Instead of taking that experience somewhere else in the Valley, they built almost directly across the street from their first location, with 36 rotating taps of craft beer and wine, shuffleboard, darts, and charcuterie boards from local vendor Meets N Cheeses.
That's nearly double the tap count of the original brewery, placed a few dozen steps from it. When the operators who know Queen Creek's drinking habits best decide the smartest place to expand is directly across the street from where they started, that tells you more about downtown foot traffic than any survey would.
The corner got busier fast. Badlands Bar & Grill opened right next door to Sacred Pint, though it's worth noting that Badlands was originally announced by the town back in 2023 as slated to open that same year. It took roughly two years longer than planned to actually open its doors, which is a useful reminder that downtown Queen Creek's build-out has moved in fits and starts rather than a straight line.
A Quick Read on the Block
| Spot | Open Since / Opening | Taps or Size | What Makes It Different |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old Ellsworth Brewing | 2017 | Nearly 20 taps | Beers brewed with olives from the Queen Creek Olive Mill and peaches from Schnepf Farms |
| The Sacred Pint | October 17, 2025 | 36 taps | Founded by the same owners as Old Ellsworth, built across the street from it |
| Badlands Bar & Grill | Recently opened, originally planned for 2023 | — | Sits next door to Sacred Pint on the same corner |
| The Perch Brewery | Anticipated Fall 2026 | Three stories, reported between 16,000 and 28,000+ square feet | Signature rescue-bird aviary, following locations in Chandler (2014) and Gilbert (2024) |
Now Someone Is Building a Three-Story Bet a Few Blocks Over
The biggest wager on downtown Queen Creek right now belongs to The Perch. Owners Rebecca and Ken Lavenue broke ground on September 3, 2025 on a Munoz Street site between Old Ellsworth Road and Ellsworth Loop, and the numbers involved are the largest anyone has committed to this stretch of town. Early reporting put the core building at 16,000 square feet with room to grow to as much as 46,000 square feet total across the 3.8-acre site. Later coverage from Phoenix New Times described it as a three-story, 28,000-square-foot brewery, restaurant, and event space, so the final footprint may still be settling as construction continues. Either figure makes this the largest single food and beverage project downtown has seen.
Rebecca Lavenue was blunt about why she picked this spot:
"Queen Creek really doesn't have much of a downtown currently."
The Perch already has two locations, one that opened in Chandler in 2014 and one in Gilbert in 2024, both known for a house aviary of rescue birds that live on the patio. The Queen Creek location will carry over signature beers like Batch 28 Blonde, Reynolds' Irish Red, and the brown ale Bird Café, and the Lavenues expect to hire at least 80 new staff members to run it. Groundbreaking kicked off an 11-month construction timeline, which puts the original target window right around now, so the anticipated fall 2026 opening could land any week.
The Town Paid for the Sidewalks First
None of this clustered on Ellsworth and Munoz by accident. The Town of Queen Creek has been investing in three downtown core connectors, Aldecoa Drive, Munoz Street, and Summers Place, specifically to shorten the walk between one business and the next and add shade structures, angled parking, and seating along the way. The town has also run a façade improvement program that matches up to $40,000 in street-facing renovations, capped at $20,000 per application, to help older buildings in the core get a face-lift before new tenants move in.
That's the part that's easy to miss if you only pay attention to the openings themselves. The town's own development update describes the goal as creating urban blocks that make areas of interest reachable on foot rather than by car, which is exactly the pattern playing out on Ellsworth Road right now. The public investment came first. The private bets followed once the walkability was actually there to bet on.
If You're Doing the Walk This Weekend
The current lineup is close enough together to do in one evening without moving your car.
- Start at Old Ellsworth Brewing, 22005 S Ellsworth Road, for the award-winning IPA and a plate of build-your-own poutine.
- Cross the street to The Sacred Pint at 22022 S Ellsworth Road and work through a few of the 36 rotating taps.
- Badlands Bar & Grill is right next door if you want a change of scenery or something on a TV.
- Once The Perch opens this fall, its Munoz Street address puts it a few blocks from all three, close enough to fold into the same night out.
What Three Openings in One Year Actually Tell You
A single new taproom is a nice addition to a neighborhood. Three new venues opening within about a year, backed by the same operators reinvesting in their own block and a town spending real money on the infrastructure to connect them, is something closer to a pattern. Downtown Queen Creek spent most of the last decade as a stretch of Ellsworth Road with one brewery and a lot of open lots. It's spending this one filling in.
Watch what happens when The Perch actually opens its doors this fall. If the pattern holds, it won't be the last big bet placed on that stretch of Munoz Street. It'll be the next data point in a trend that's been building since 2017.
If you're curious what a downtown changing this fast means for what your own Queen Creek home is worth, that's exactly the kind of local read the team at Big Picture Real Estate Group tracks block by block. Request Your Free Home Valuation and we'll walk you through what's actually moving the needle in your part of town.
