Sean Frasier has had a 15 year dream to open a brewery in his hometown, and in the last five years, with the support of his wife, Jennifer Frasier, he has worked toward making his dream a reality.
For the past two years, the duo have been searching property listings all over Bradford to find the perfect location to house their dream brewery. They were in luck. They found and purchased the building at 96 Main St.
“The building was originally built in the 1950s as an auto showroom, which fell through and the building was purchased by the Tates and converted to retail space, but because of the original construction we have everything we need. So we got lucky. If we were to build a brewery it would be exactly like this building,” Sean said.
Before pursuing his dream of opening a brewery Sean was a principal network engineer for Charter Communication. He traveled for the position for 20 years and “is very happy to be able to be back in his hometown, without living out of a suitcase and hotel rooms.”
Sean decided to name his business Pig Island Brewery after reading a book titled ‘Turn Back Time in Bradford, PA,’ written by Sally Costik, which contains history and facts about Bradford. One of the initial chapters of the book was entitled Pig Island, which according to Costik’s book was an area in Bradford during the 1800s around Charlotte Avenue, Mechanic Street and East Washington Street where the brothels and gambling dens were located.
Sean and his brother, Brian Frasier, have been hard at work getting the business ready to open. Sean Frazier anticipates it will open during the last few months of this year.
“The Clarion Small Business Development Center has been working with us. Specifically, Aleshia Marshall, who has been instrumental in helping us with research, business planning, demographics and multiple other business related help,” Frasier said.
As far as long term plans, Frasier stated that eventually he and his wife will be converting and utilizing the rooftop of the brewery as a dining area, “to bring the urban city feel to our small town,” he said.
The Frasiers plan on providing regular status updates to inform the public on their progress through their designated Facebook page at facebook.com/pigislandbrewery.
