HopCat Goes Nationwide

An infusion of 25 million dollars in cash from a Texas investor will allow Grand Rapids based brewpub HopCat to expand nationally over the next few years.

Let me put it to you this way, in five years, if you tried to have one beer at every HopCat, you'd be pretty wasted.

When RateBeer.com voted HopCat the best brewpub, the rest of the country took notice, and now everyone wants their own HopCat.

Mark Sellers, who owns BarFly Ventures, HopCat's parent company announced this week that the chain will expand to thirty brewpubs nationwide over the next five years.

The influx of 25 million dollars for the expansion comes from an unnamed Dallas, Texas (Mark Cuban??) investor who will also pick up a small equity in the company.

The plan is to launch six new locations a year for the next five years, mostly in college towns in the Midwest. Currently, HopCat has locations in Indianapolis, East Lansing, Ann Arbor, and Detroit in addition to their Ionia Street location in Grand Rapids.

The first expansion will be in Lexington, KY, which will open this fall near the University of Kentucky campus. Louisville, KY has been mentioned as another possible location for a HopCat, possibly by early next year.