Omnus Brewing, a new brewery and tap room helmed by Downingtown local Jeff Boyda, is set to take over the former HG Motorcar dealership at 711 W Lancaster Ave, with a projected opening date sometime between the end of 2023 and beginning of next year.
While he won’t be heading up the brewery specifically, Boyda – who identifies as a white, cis-gender male – is on a mission to build a team that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive, echoing the operation’s name Omnus, or “everyone” in Latin, and ushering in a new dynamic that’s still largely unseen in the brewing industry at large.
“Where my skills and abilities lie is a lot on the team building and community side, and networking side of the business, so building teams that are diverse, where people don’t look like each other, where there’s the opportunity for more diverse perspectives,” Boyda tells What Now Philadelphia. “Not even just racially, but the way people were raised and where they come from, and their understanding of the world, of business, and of the brewing industry, and taking everything that everybody says and producing a product that is put together by a community, and not just an individual wanting to take a business in a certain direction.”
Simply put, Boyda says he doesn’t want it to be “just a bunch of guys that look like me, but…women, people of color, members of the LGBT+ community at all levels of the business.”
When it first opens, Omnus Brewing will house the brewery operation as well as its taproom in the 8,700-square-foot space, while partnering with local food trucks and nearby restaurants to keep guests full. Likewise, it will also offer a selection of local wines and spirits.
“We’re going to get up and running, and down the road, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it if we want to expand into food service on the property, but from the beginning, it’ll just be beer and light snacks,” says Boyda.
