An ‘American Take on Oktoberfest’: A Massive Beer Hall Debuts in Medford

Rendering of Great American Beer Hall. / Blue Pixel 3D

It’s time for a “Mystic makeover,” if you ask the team behind the Great American Beer Hall, opening August 31 on Medford’s largely industrial Mystic Avenue. They’re hoping their cavernous venue—complete with roof deck, dog-friendly patio, cold-weather fire pit, plenty of private event space, and parking (!)—will help spur the evolution of a strip that’s home to plumbing supply stores, car rentals, and the like.

The Great American Beer Hall is meant to feel like “the American take on Oktoberfest,” says Brian Zarthar, one of six owners. The 17,000-square-foot space’s design encourages gathering, not holing up quietly in a bar seat alone. You’ll grab a drink from one of several concessions-style bars lining the space and head back to socialize over cornhole or pizza, perhaps watching a game on one of two giant screens or taking in live music. You might bring the kids; you might bring the dog (to the patio). Come colder weather, you might buy a Christmas tree out front before cozying up to the fire pit.

It’s important to the team to showcase New England craft beers, so those make up around 75 to 80 percent of the 30 draft lines, says Zarthar, with some easy-drinking, familiar national names comprising the rest (Guinness, Blue Moon, and such). “If you come here and like a beer, I want you to know that you can [also] drive to that brewery and spend a weekend visiting,” says Zarthar. Highlights from the opening list include Portland, Maine-based Bissell Brothers’ Substance IPA; Littleton, New Hampshire-based Schilling’s Jakobus German pilsner; and Burlington, Vermont-based Zero Gravity’s Green State Light lager. Massachusetts favorites like Vitamin Sea, Widowmaker, and Idle Hands also make the list. Not in the mood for beer? There are also wines, cocktails, and seltzers.

Chef Nick Dowling—cofounder of Snappy Pattys in West Medford and an alum of Boston’s Franklin Café—is at the helm of the beer hall’s in-house restaurant, the Lantern. (Paul Revere’s midnight ride inspired the name as Medford was on the horseback route.) Pizzas are the focus: “It’s a cross between Neapolitan and New York-style, as Nick describes it,” says Zarthar. “I gave him the task of creating a pizza or two that can’t be replicated anywhere else, so you’re going to see stuff on our menu that you’ve never seen before.” The Lantern also features a variety of dipping sauces for pizza crust.

As time goes on, Dowling will expand the menu, adding salads, small bites, and a handful of entrees, such as brisket burnt ends and cedar plank-roasted salmon. With a daily noon opening, the beer hall team is angling for lunch business in addition to dinner and late-night.

Rendering of Great American Beer Hall. / Blue Pixel 3D

In the short term, the inspiration for the Great American Beer Hall comes from a 2018 trip Zarthar took to visit his brother, Mark, in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Mark is also a partner in the beer hall.) “We went out to an outdoor food hall, and I noticed a lot of people were coming in, just having drinks and gathering,” says Zarthar. “I wondered, ‘If I came home and did this on Mystic Avenue and focused on the craft beer, what could it be?’” Because making something of Mystic Avenue, it turns out, has been a goal of the Zarthar family for much, much longer, and this could be the project to trigger further growth.

In the 1950s, the Zarthars’ great-grandfather, Burt Consentino, partnered with Murray Matrundola to open Murray Supply, a plumbing and heating equipment business, on the street; their grandfather, Ronnie Cosentino, joined as a partner in 1962. Together, the partners invested in several pieces of Mystic Avenue real estate, at the time envisioning the strip someday becoming an auto mile. (When Matrundola passed in 2011, his son, Andrew, became a partner in the business and the real estate with Ronnie, who continues working four or five days a week today at 91 years old.) The auto mile didn’t come to pass, but now Brian Zarthar—who shoveled, painted, and cleaned the properties as a high-school senior 20 years ago before moving up to property manager and finally vice president—has a more hospitable vision. More restaurants, some housing, maybe a hotel, “rejuvenating an area that so badly needs it,” he says. “I’d love to change the use from industrial to medium-density, with people living here, riding bikes, walking here. The road is so close to Boston; there’s so much potential.”

Perhaps the time is right: Medford is in the middle of a rebirth. Cambridge and Somerville expats are moving to Medford for more affordable space but hoping to find a similar wealth of dining, drinking, and entertainment. The Chevalier Theatre has been attracting huge acts (Ringo Starr’s coming in September); the 2023 openings of Deep Cuts and El Tacuba have brought in late-night music and tequila, respectively, to Medford Square. The time has come for a project like this, and it seems reasonable to expect that the growing amount of fun in the Square can trickle south a mile onto Mystic Avenue.

Like the street, the Great American Beer Hall will continue to evolve: The mezzanine and roof deck won’t be open on day one (look for them later this fall), and most of the furniture is temporary, with the real items delayed by supply-chain issues. But the doors are opening. Zarthar and the team—and Medford—have been waiting long enough.

Rendering of Great American Beer Hall. / Blue Pixel 3D

Great American Beer Hall debuts August 31 and will open at noon daily, closing at 11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 1 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. 142 Mystic Ave., Medford, gabhall.com.