Beer hall to open at Port Chester train station

A billboard promoting Port Chester Hall in downtown Port Chester.

The last of the Metro-North bar cars has been retired. But if commuters were fretting about no longer being able to grab a beer on the train, they”™ll at least be able to get one once they arrive at the station.

A Heartland Brewery-owned beer and dining hall is scheduled to open this month in the 125-year-old Port Chester train station.

Port Chester Hall will have a full menu and serve 12 exclusive locally-brewed craft beers in English, Belgian, German and American styles. The menu will include dishes like pastrami Reuben spring rolls, bacon-and-chicken macaroni and cheese, and Maui fish tacos, according to the hall”™s website, portchesterhall.com.

Construction began in June 2013 on the 5,630-square-foot building, which will be complemented by a 3,600-square-foot landscaped outdoor area. It will serve up to 85 people, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the building.

The hall will serve lunch and dinner and also operate a coffee concession from 6 to 11 a.m. for weekday Metro-North commuters. The ticket office that operated at the building will reopen in September, according to the MTA.

Jon Bloostein is founder and CEO of Heartland Brewery, a New York City-based company that operates six restaurants in Manhattan as well as two beer halls ”“ the Flatiron Hall and Houston Hall. Port Chester represents the first move out of the boroughs for Heartland. In a news release announcing the deal between the brewery and MTA, Bloostein said the name of the restaurant was a tribute to the locale.

“Designing a restaurant in this historic building and working with a designer and a landscape architect together on the food hall and beer garden is something I have always wanted,” Bloostein said.

Employee-owned Heartland will be making $1.2 million worth of infrastructure improvements to the building, including new gas lines, air conditioning and plumbing and electrical upgrades. The conversion of the station building into a restaurant preserved the existing mosaic and stone floor and old wooden benches at the site. The renovated area will include a retooled area with vintage lighting, old murals and stone fireplaces.

Heartland was chosen after the MTA issued a request for proposals in 2012. As part of the deal, the company paid the MTA $80,000 in the first year of a 20-year net lease with 3 percent annual increases for the remainder of the deal.

The MTA has in recent years leased out or sold a number of its old station buildings along the Metro-North tracks. Via Vanti restaurant moved in to the Mount Kisco station and the MTA sold a former Mamaroneck ticket office to a developer that constructed the Club Car restaurant. Last year, Metro-North officials said they were renovating the Crestwood station building and would request proposals for the building from potential tenants.

Heartland Brewery opened in 1995, according to its website, and one of its locations is right outside of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan. Its brewery is in Brooklyn.