A tech executive and a real estate developer walk into a bar. No, that’s not the start of a joke — it’s the start of a business.
The bar in question is actually a brewery, Harlan County Beer Co., and it’s the first of its kind for that part of Southeastern Kentucky. The concept was created and co-founded by Gill Holland and Geoff Marietta.
Holland, widely known for his redevelopment efforts to turn Louisville’s East Market District into the popular NuLu neighborhood, has been working to create new businesses, restore historic properties and establish new job opportunities in Portland, a neighborhood in West Louisville.
So what’s he doing in Harlan County of all places?
Holland was drawn there by Marietta, a tech founder and real estate investor and community developer in his own right.
Marietta moved to Appalachia with his wife Sky, a native of Eastern Kentucky, in 2015. The couple had met while working in education on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, before moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts to pursue graduate and doctoral degrees at Harvard University.
During his time in Cambridge, Marietta co-founded and served as CEO of the software development company, Giant Otter Technologies, which was later acquired by Drift.com in 2019.
After moving to Harlan County, the Mariettas started investing in “Main Street,” finding opportunity to build up a region ravaged by the loss of the coal mining industry. They’ve since opened three concepts: Moonbow Tipple, a coffee and sweets shop in Harlan; Moonbow, a wedding and event venue in Corbin; and Moonbow Mercantile in Williamsburg.
Marietta told me he first met Holland through a self-financed field trip, of sorts, to meet with business owners in Louisville in late 2016. The trip was facilitated through Mike Mays, president of Heine Brothers Coffee, who established his company’s headquarters in the Portland neighborhood.
“Gill did his whole Portland pitch and he said two things that really stuck with me,” Marrietta said. “One, balance community development with economic development, and two, renovate existing buildings over building a new building, not only for the preservation aspect, but also when you renovate an old building, you spend 70% on labor and 30% on material and when you're building a building that proportion is reversed.
“That really struck me because in Eastern Kentucky, we obviously have an unemployment problem and you have a lot of vacant buildings, and so if you can invest in renovating these buildings, you kind of kill two birds with one stone — you employ people and then you also renovate an existing building.”
Community-led crowdfunding
Following the Louisville field trip, Marietta said he continuously pestered Holland to make a trip down to Harlan County. Holland did, eventually, and when he arrived, he told Marietta he was running for lieutenant governor of Kentucky.
A week after losing the campaign in November 2019, Holland sent Marietta an email, simply titled “Harlan County Beer Company.” The city of Harlan had just voted yes to become wet that same month — it has no bars and currently only two restaurants in the area that serve alcohol — so the project would bring the first brewery within a two-hour drive in the region.
Holland and Marietta looked at different properties for the concept and found a 100-year-old historic building on the courthouse square in Harlan. After tough negotiations with the owners of the 12,000-square-foot building (who didn’t want to sell), they purchased the property in December 2019.
They began the cleanup and demo process in early 2020, knowing they were going to need capital to bring the Harlan County Beer Co. to fruition. There was just one problem: finding investors.
“Harlan County has been one of the top 10 or 20 poorest counties in the United States for the past five or six decades,” Marietta said. “I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but I think people forget that Southeastern Kentucky is one of the poorest areas in the United States — who is going to invest in that?”
Fortunately, Holland had heard of Wefunder, a crowdfunding platform, through Louisville CBD-startup company Cornbread Hemp, which raised nearly $400,000 through crowdfunding last year. Wefunder allows communities to invest in projects in their own neighborhoods, without the need for accredited investors.
Justin Renfro, director of partnerships at Wefunder, said it’s not just tech-enabled, high-growth startups that can raise through crowdfunding. Brick-and-mortar businesses can find crowdfunding success too.
“I think breweries in particular have a lot of success on Wefunder, because they're very community oriented,” he said. “A brewery is a face, a symbol and representation of a neighborhood, and it has a lot of cultural fabric to it. I think that there's loyalty and pride in your local brewery — it’s where friends converge.”
Harlan County Beer Co. raised about $240,000 through its Wefunder campaign and about $300,000 in total for the completion of the brewery.
It had more than 350 investors and about 10% of those came from the small community of Harland itself.
“I can tell you story after story — a Vietnam veteran stopped me in the middle of the street, whipped out his checkbook and wrote a check to me on the hood of his car because he believes in his community,” Marietta said. “I had a track record of investment and they’ve seen my work, so it was like, ‘This guy wants to invest in our community, let’s do it.’”
Even more investors have ties to the Southeastern region, whether they are former residents themselves or have family from the area. Several of those “connected” investors are Louisvillians, Marietta continued.
The raised capital will be used on the kitchen and brewery equipment and furniture for the 4,000-square-foot first floor of the building. The second floor will eventually be expanded seating and private event space, and apartments are planned for the third floor.
Marietta said he and Holland will be looking for additional capital, whether that’s through a Small Business Administration loan or through another equity investor.
Harlan County Beer Co. will employ 12 to 15 people when it opens in late November, after months of supply chain and other delays. Marietta said beer production might not be fully operational by then, but the full-service bar and restaurant side of the business will be ready to go.
