The duo behind Away Days Brewing now operates a design agency to help small businesses get their dreams up-and-running at an affordable price.
Pete Hoppins and his wife Niki Diamond launched Home & Away Studios at the beginning of 2022 after their friend asked for help launching his new restaurant in Seattle. Hoppins said they gave him a friends-and-family discount on services such as design, branding and social media.
That restaurant, called Ltd Edition, registered such great early success that it was included in the Seattle Times’ 11 best restaurants of 2022. Hoppins said he saw the potential he and Diamond’s design eyes had to help more people launch their small businesses without breaking the bank.
“I know the budgets, I can tell you that no small business can afford (expensive agencies). And even the small to mid size agencies, they can't do the work for under a certain price, they've got such big overheads. So that's where we come in,” Hoppins said.
Design is second nature to the couple that moved to Portland from the U.K. in 2009 after Hoppins was offered a job at Nike. After 13 years with the Beaverton-based apparel giant, Hoppins opened the European-inspired pub, Toffee Club, in 2016.
“We always felt that even though Portland has amazing bars, restaurants and a really good food and drinks scene, we didn't really feel like there was a place that we could call home, like the equivalent of an English pub,” Hoppins said.
Toffee Club soon became a go-to spot in Portland for Premier League Soccer games, Hoppins said, opening early on weekends to account for the time differences. With the bar’s success came the need for more room: Right around that time, Toffee Club’s neighbors, Scout Beer, closed their Central Eastside location.
They asked if Hoppins wanted to take on their lease and buy the brewing equipment at a drastic discount. Hoppins eventually opened Away Days Brewing in 2019.
“The plan really was to just have these two things feed off each other, we would basically make beer for the pub just next door,” Hoppins said.
Covid brought new challenges for the pub and neighboring brewing business, so Hoppins said he and his wife went all in on wholesaling Away Days products and decided to close Toffee Club.
The brewery has since become known for its tasty brews, aesthetically pleasing branding and collaborations with other local brands like Deadstock Coffee.
Hoppins said because of their desire to offer personalized, affordable consulting, Home & Away will only take on a handful of clients a year. The couple has obvious experience in food and beverage, but they aren’t sticking to just offering services for those kinds of companies, Hoppins said.
“We've done a construction company, we did a hairdresser, we've done a non-alcoholic beer brand, we're working on a Pacific Northwest salmon manufacturer,” Hoppins said. “So it's kind of across the board.”
