Bonsai brewery eyes new home on Wisconsin Avenue

Bonsai Brewing Project is planning to relocate from the Mountain Mall to the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Denver Street in Whitefish.

Whitefish City Council on Monday approved a conditional use permit that allows the nanobrewery to operate out of the former Rising Sun Bistro building.

The property is zoned as limited business district which is for commercial uses within or adjacent to residential areas. Microbreweries are allowed in the zoning with a conditional use permit.

The nanobrewery opened at the beginning of the year in the mall with a selection of six beers after raising $17,800 through a crowd-sourced fundraising campaign. A nanobrewery is an extremely small version of a microbrewery that produces less than 1,000 barrels of beer per year.

Graham Hart, Bonsai’s owner, said the new location will house a brewing facility, taproom and an outdoor serving area. There are no plans for bottling, but Bonsai may sell a few kegs to local businesses, Hart noted.

“This location will be a great addition to the growing corridor to Big Mountain and will help to build the experience that the north side of the tracks has to offer,” Hart said in an application to the city.

Under state law, the brewery has limited hours of operation of 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily and can only serve each customer a maximum of 48 ounces of beer per day.

During the Whitefish Planning Board hearing earlier this month, board members asked that both sides of Denver Street between Wisconsin and Colorado avenues be designated as “no parking.”

The power to designate no parking streets rests solely with the council and it is uncommon to require an applicant to make off-site improvements in order to obtain a CUP, according to the planning staff report. City fire, police and public works departments have since looked at the street and said that designating it as no parking is not necessary.

City council agreed Monday to remove a condition that required a portion of the street to be closed to parking.

Councilor Jen Frandsen said any decision to create a no parking zone on the street should be separate from the CUP request and considered by council at a later date.