Chico pub weighs community-owned business model

CHICO, Calif. — The Allies Pub got its start in Downtown Chico six months before the height of the pandemic and survived, quickly becoming a community hub and destination in the Northstate. Now, its owner says he wants the community to have a hand in its future, weighing a community-owned business model.

“We call it The Allies Pub because we bring a lot of American and British beers together and we’re celebrating The Allies. A lot of our beers have a historic background. They’re all tied to historic events or people that we want to celebrate who have created the freedom and peace and the world that we currently live in,” said Stephen Kay, patriarch of the Allies Pub and British Bulldog Brewery.

Kay, who grew up in the United Kingdom, says he began brewing beer at the age of 14.

“I was actually in the church choir and my voice broke quite early and in the UK, you’re allowed to go to the pub at the age of 14. I was now in the men’s choir so they would take me to the pub after practice and we started drinking beer, which I couldn’t really afford so I looked into the local pharmacy and they had a beer kit,” he said.

Kay says he and his son-in-law brew the beers themselves. The English cuisine, along with the pub’s hand-pulled and cask-conditioned beers continue to draw loyal crowds from beyond Butte County.

“Everything we have up there right now are our beers, apart from one cider, which we have so we can do cider beer mixes we also do a boiled tea, which is a gluten-free hard tea,” he said.

The business was intended to serve as a partial retirement plan, but as it took on a life of its own, Kay says, it’s difficult to take a step back and fully enjoy retirement. It led Kay to mull the possibility of transitioning the pub into a community-owned business model.

“If we sell it, there’s no knowing whether anyone’s going to continue with the space as it is and so much of the community want it to be this way. We have people coming in all the time saying ‘please don’t close this down,’” he said. “It’s sort of like a membership-style approach but essentially supporting the pub as a core asset. It’s really down to the community. So long as the community love it, it can be multi-generational.”

Kay says over the years, the space has quickly become a community meeting space, hosting gatherings for men’s groups, Irish folk music bands, book clubs as well as weddings, funerals and baptisms.

On Monday evening, Tim Applebee, an Irish folk singer with Meave and Company, sang to a crowd of pub-goers, accompanied by his accordion along with several other musicians.

“All of us have played in different venues around town and this one seemed to be the most authentic Irish English pub atmosphere,” he said. “[Kay] was thrilled when I posed the idea of a traditional session because he’s got a lot of great music herePeople listen along and it’s kind of inclusive.”

Kay says he will host a series of meetings and identify people who are potentially interested in the community pub model.

“At the end of the day, that becomes a collective. The collective at that point…we will start to set aside funding for moving this asset into another company,” he said.

He and his wife will be donating their half of the business to the new company, allowing them to remain owners within the new iteration of the pub.

“We’re not walking away from it. We just want to take a bit of a backseat,” he said. “Beyond the profits necessary to keep the pub running, the idea is to actually use those profits for community benefit and we will be identifying community projects that we want to work with…We’re going to try to go through this process. We believe that ultimately we will be a jewel here for Chico in the long term. We want to preserve that.”

Kay will be hosting the first educational meeting Sunday, May 26 at the pub at 426 Broadway. The pub is accessed through the back of the building. The pub also frequently posts updates on its Facebook page.