They say that when one door closes, another one opens. If you’re proactive, sometimes you’re looking for the next door before the previous one closes completely. In the case of Mark Doble, that was the path he took.
In 2007, the economy was in the tank. Mark was a consultant for Hewlett Packard. Just like many people that were in corporate America during the recession, Mark got stuck with more work combined with pay cuts with little opportunity for advancement. The pay had gotten so bad that he could pay his bills, but nothing else. Mark knew it was time to look for another door.
That door led him down a path into unchartered territory. As the path wound back and forth, over hills and through valleys, the new venture that had humble beginnings became one of North Carolina’s most well-know craft breweries; Aviator Brewing Company.
Mark spent his high school years overseas moving regularly with his family throughout Europe. His dad was serving the US Army. European teenagers (and American teens living in Europe) are exposed to a very different culture than teenagers stateside. It’s not uncommon to go out drinking with friends (legally) at 15 or 16. Submerged in the European culture, Mark developed a passion for beer, as well as the knowledge of how to brew it.
After high school in Brunssum, Netherlands, Mark went to Connahs Quay North Wales, to attend college and then off to the University of South Florida in Tampa for an Electrical Engineering degree. He spent 2 years in the Army and then graduated school at Georgia Tech with a Masters in Electrical Engineering. The whole time working on his brewing skills.
Eventually he landed a job at HP. He decided that as a way to supplement his income at HP, and hopefully to be able to support his family without HP, he’d set up a brewery in a 40’ x 50’ airplane hangar in Fuquay-Varina at Triple W Air Park. He and his wife had bought the hangar months earlier to house the plane that Mark built in their garage in Tampa, Florida. Yup – you read that right; he actually built the plane in Tampa in half of a 2-car garage. I tell you that in order for you to better understand (and believe) what comes next in the story.
The story of Aviator began in February of 2008. That’s when Mark made the decision to start looking for some used brewing equipment. The airplane hangar was big enough to house the equipment he was going to need to start brewing. The experience that he had gained as a teen in Europe turned out to be more valuable than he could have even known. Mark explained, “As we were learning the process, we had already learned to get yeast from bottles, and culturing it and getting it to grow, and pitching that yeast into our beer. There was a lot of experimenting. Some of the beer was terrible, some was a little bit better. We drank it all.”
“I’ve always loved beer. I’d drive 100 miles to go try a new beer, or go buy a type of beer just to try it. I had this hangar, and I found an old brewing system in California that a couple had in a San Francisco Bay area restaurant. They had it in the early 80’s, and it had been sitting in storage at a Devils Canyon brewery. I bought it for $10k. It was a 10-barrel brewing system.
In Denver, I found three used 10-barrel bright tanks from Del Norte Brewing, and in Montana, I found three used dairy tanks from Carters Brewing. I had an 18-wheeler meet me in California to load up the brewing system, we then went to Montana and added those tanks, then rented a truck in Montana and drove to Denver to pick up the other pieces. Then that truck was driven to my hangar in Fuquay-Varina.”
In May of 2008, construction began on the brewery. The crew to build it was a crew of one. While still working at HP, Mark was building the brewery little by little. “I didn’t know how to weld. I learned to weld on Google. I didn’t realize you could get sunburned from welding so I got a really bad sunburn. You learn all these things through trial and error.”
Cash had already run out, and now he was building onto the credit card debt that had started with buying the equipment. Credit card debt had already reached $80,000 – $90,000. The plan was that if he could sell 20 kegs and 300 pints a week, he’d be able to cover the payments on the quickly accumulating debt, and still be able to grow the business by buying the ancillary things that were needed for the business, like pint glasses and t-shirts.
In November of 2008, the brewery was ready. The brewery opened with one beer on tap. “I didn’t have a cooler, so I had a kegerator. I’d brew the beer and put the keg in the kegerator. When the keg ran out, I’d run it over to the bright tank and refill it.” He had everything but the patrons. “I didn’t really know anybody, but Lianna [Mark’s wife] was in the local Mom’s Club. She told all her friends in the Mom’s Club, so they came on November 28, 2008 and we started selling beer.”
The brewery was open Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, because Mark still worked at HP. During the week, after hours, he was in Raleigh trying to sell beer. “I was pretty busy. I’d start brewing at 3am, and try to be done by 11am. Then I’d go to work at my day job until 6 or 7pm. Then at 7, I’d go into Raleigh to try to sell kegs. I’d be back by 10, and back to the brewery at 3am. On the nights I’d have the bar open, I’d open that at 7pm, close it at 11pm, then clean up and go home, only to come back at 3am to brew. I did that for almost 2 years.”
There is nothing easy about starting a new business. Any entrepreneur can tell you that. Mark summed it up in simple terms. “We learned that failure is common, and the trick is to succeed more than you fail. We have weeks that we fail more than we succeed, but that’s part of being in business.”
The reality was that it’s hard to have a successful business out of a 40’ x 50’ airplane hangar with no heat or air conditioning, and no facilities. “We opened the Taphouse, which was the old Varina Station in September 2009. We moved from the hangar into the brewery at 209 Technology Park Ln in April of 2010.”
The decision to move into the Varina Station building was based on a combination of factors. When signing the lease, it was part of the agreement that they could buy it after the first year. When they moved in, much like the original hangar, Mark did the work himself, including running the draft lines and building the cooler. Once the tap house was open, they realized that they were going to have to brew about ten-times more beer.
The beer at the Taphouse was being brewed in the same 10 barrel system that they started with, producing 300 gallons at a time – hardly enough to keep up with demand. At that point they realized that in order to keep moving forward, they were going to have to upgrade to a 30-barrel system, and take on a lot more debt. “When we left the hangar, we were at about 1,000 barrels a year, when we got [to the current location] we quickly ramped up to about 2,000 barrels a year, and once we bought the 30-barrel system, we went almost immediately to putting out about 6,000 barrels a year to keep up with demand.”
As Aviator increased in popularity, so did craft beer. The Dobles were faced with learning a new side of the business which included competing for shelf space and tap handles. Although craft beer only accounts for roughly 15% of national beer sales, currently, it’s become much more common, and continues to gain popularity.
When the restaurant across the street from the Taphouse went out of business, Mark spoke with the owner and signed yet another lease. At the time, the owner didn’t want to sell, and wasn’t interested in a lease to purchase. It took about eight months of renovations and work before they first opened to the public in March of 2011. They learned the restaurant business by opening a restaurant and jumping in with both feet. Two years into the lease, the owner decided he was ready to sell the building. Once they completed the purchase of the building, they started on the second round of renovations to the restaurant.
Between running the Taphouse, running the brewery and running the restaurant, Mark was at his wit’s end and overwhelmed. He went in one day and told his wife that she was going to have to take over the restaurant in order for them to be able to keep it open. He no longer had the time to handle everything. With a degree in finance, she came in and took over the restaurant and made it very successful.
In 2015, they moved into the top 10% in gross sales among privately-owned non-chain restaurants in the Triangle. Today, they are in the top 2%. “We have the ‘continual process improvement’ ideology. We have meetings to find out what the problems are, and fix them. Some of the problems take time to fix, but we will always fix them.”
So why is the restaurant doing so well? It’s a simple formula, quality food at a fair price. “We run a higher food cost at the restaurant than other restaurants. We get beer for less than other restaurants, so we can spend more money on the food, and give the customer larger portions at a better price. Most folks don’t realize that when we are full, seated on all side of the street ,our kitchen pumps out food for 500 folks and sometimes that can delay meals. We are working as fast as we can to add a kitchen to Aviator TapHouse.”
The building on the corner opposite the Taphouse, and across from the Smokehouse came up for sale, and Mark bought it. The tenants remained there. Both stores decided to close their doors. After some delays, they were finally able to use the building the way they had planned, and opened a bottle shop in October 2015. The Shop & Save next door to the bottle shop was still in business, but not for long. When it closed, Mark was again able to buy the building.
Back in 2014, they had decided that at some point they wanted to open a pizza restaurant, and only recently did those plans start to come to fruition. It took time to get the space, as well as time to get the money to be able to get the equipment, the permits, etc. The plans and permitting was a thirteen-month process.
At press time, they are scheduled to break ground any day. The plan is to move the bottle shop over to where the Shop & Save was, add a second story to the building, and the new restaurant will be in the space where the bottle shop currently is. The second story of the new bottle shop will have an open fire pit upstairs with wire railings and bar. There will be a sand volleyball court behind the building as an addition to the atmosphere of having people come by, get some food, maybe a beer and have some fun. The buildings will be combined, and you’ll be able to walk from one to the other inside.
“We are going to have brick oven pizza. Our sauce will be made with tomatoes grown in the shadows of Mount Vesuvius in Italy. That’s the type of quality we’re bringing. It’s Neapolitan style.” They hope to have the restaurant open around July 2018.
The new facility for Aviator is going in the space where the Gold Leaf warehouse used to be at the corner of North St and Sherrill Rd., about a block from the other Aviator properties. The new facility will house a new brewery, and be more accessible to people. Visitors coming to visit the brewery will be in walking distance from downtown Varina, and the businesses there.
“The brewery is going to be a beer entertainment experience. The new brewhouse will be 60-barrel 4-vessel and fully automated. It’s going to be like going to a Dave & Busters for beer. We’ll have a pub bike garage, so that people can get on the pub bikes and go all over Fuquay-Varina to different bars. We’ll also have a coffee shop where we’ll hand-roast our own beans in a big copper kettle, and brew our own coffee, as well as our distillery for our brand Gold Leaf Distilling. We will have a co-working space for new businesses and help incubate them. Throughout the building, we’ll offer hi-speed free internet to guests. We’ll also have a restaurant there, although we don’t know exactly what the theme will be yet. The kitchen will be open and in the center of the restaurant. The restaurant will also feature a big patio opening on the concert venue. People in the co-working space will be able to mingle with our office staff, and have access to everything we have, including our conference room whenever we’re not using it. We’re also looking to do an outdoor amphitheater there. We’re very conscious of not being a nuisance to our neighbors. It’s important to us to be a good neighbor. I think we’re doing a pretty good job of doing that now, and I want to continue that way.”
There will be a Tony Hawk designed skatepark on the property as well. They have been working with the Tony Hawk Foundation on the design. The skate park will be 10,000 square feet, and open to the public. The building will also have a game room with pool tables and maybe coin-op games. Approximately 220 parking spaces will be added outside the new brewery building, which will help not only parking for the brewery, but for the other properties downtown and will be open to the public. If the plans stay on track, they’ll be breaking ground on the brewery in July, and they hope to open at least part of the site in November to celebrate their 10-year anniversary.
