Hotel Tango Artisan Distillery founder and CEO Travis Barnes views Zionsville as an ideal spot for its next expansion.
It was recently announced that a tasting room will open at 10615 Zionsville Rd. in 2020. It is in the building previously home to Village Station Pizza King, which closed in August.
Hotel Tango Distillery opened in Fletcher Place in Indianapolis in 2015. The second business, HT2, a craft cocktail lounge, opened in Fort Wayne in 2017.
“While we know we have a large following in the downtown Indianapolis area, we also know many of our social media followers and website traffic comes from the suburban areas of Indianapolis,” Barnes said. “While we’re expanding outside of state lines, on the distribution side of our business, Hotel Tango awareness and purchases are still continuing to grow within the state and, more specifically, on the northwest side of Indianapolis.”
Jackson Investment Group owns the building.
“We conducted research on the Zionsville community and found it was primed for a local and craft cocktail experience, since there aren’t many others like Hotel Tango in the immediate vicinity,” said Bart Jackson of Jackson Investment Group. “We’re looking forward to working with the (Town) of Zionsville to build out this concept in the coming months.”
The plan is for the Zionsville tasting room to open in the spring or summer of 2020.
“While we’re of course going to target spring 2020, there are always unknowns that can crop up during a buildout process,” Barnes said. “So, to account for that, we wanted to make sure we didn’t set expectations for too specific of a timeframe.”
Jackson said work needs are being assessed throughout the existing building. He is is confident of executing the project swiftly.
“We’re also hoping to work closely with the (Town) of Zionsville to make it an integrated development process,” Jackson said.
The plan is to serve food.
“We don’t know what food we’ll be offering yet, but we’re excited to have options available, since that hasn’t been the case for our tasting room business before,” Barnes said.
Barnes sees the trend of artisan distilleries’ popularity continuing to expand.
“The craft spirits industry is actually the fastest growing in the total beverage industry,” Barnes said. “We’re proud to be part of that group and are always excited to see others find success in the field. If one of us wins, we all win.”
