Work on the 100 Seneca project in downtown Oil City keeps pushing forward, and much of the first floor of the old bank building will be transformed into a distillery with a nod to oil wealth past and present.
The plan is to name the restaurant with its distillery and brewery The Exchange by Side Hustle, said Jeff Karns, the founder of Side Hustle Brews and Spirits.
The name is a reference to the Oil City Oil Exchange that stood on the site of 100 Seneca in the late 1800s where the worldwide price of crude oil was set for a number of years, Karns said.
The cherry, he said, offers a glimpse back to the logging industry that has long operated in the hills of northwest Pennsylvania.
“The county is restoring (the building) in kind of a historic feel and we want to work with that,” Karns said of the furnishings he has planned.
The large safe on the first floor with its massive door will be transformed into a tasting area with small tables on one side and small barrels of whiskey stored behind bars in the safe on the other side, according to Karns.
He said he has been doing research with the help of the Heritage Society of Oil City to find old photos and news articles from The Derrick and The Blizzard pertaining to Oil City.
Karns plans to seal copies of the articles onto the tabletops of some small tables to be put in 100 Seneca.
A large gin still that holds close to 700 gallons will be in the front part of the first floor, said Karns, who added that much of the gin produced in 100 Seneca will be sold oversees in the United Arab Emirates.
Side Hustle opened the first brewery in Abu Dhabi in the Emirates, Craft by Side Hustle, late last year.
Karns said he will be traveling to Abu Dhabi in the oil rich Emirates in February for the brewery’s grand opening.
“The menu at Craft in Abu Dhabi is Cajun food and barbecue, and we are going to try that in Oil City…We want to be a restaurant where kids can come after their dance recital instead of going out of town,” Karns said.
Emily Lewis, the executive director of the Venango Economic Development Authority that owns and is renovating 100 Seneca, said work is scheduled to get underway on the first floor in February and will likely finish in November.
Karns will be involved in fitting out the space for The Exchange during the final three months of construction. He added that outfitting the “brewstillery” and restaurant will probably continue for another month after the end of construction.
After growing up in Oil City and graduating from Oil City High School in 2000, Karns went to Kent State University in Ohio to study architecture.
Following an internship, he had an opportunity to go to the United Arab Emirates where he lived for 16 years and met his wife, Hind Karns.
Jeff Karns is the son of the late Ted Karns, a local contractor, and his wife, Cindy.
While oversees as an architect building hospitals, Karns and a neighbor who became his business partner saw a market for craft beer and other products in the large expatriate community living in the Emirates.
The United Arab Emirates is a multicultural, blended country along the Persian Gulf with about eight million expats from around the world flocking there, including about one million who speak English, Karns said.
After starting Side Hustle Brews and Spirits in 2018, Karns said the first shipment of beer made in the U.S. arrived in the Emirates for distribution in 2019.
Side Hustle was the first craft beer brand in the Gulf region, Karns said. Side Hustle products, with their camel logo, have names tied to travel and the expat community in the Emirates, he added.
The plan is to keep the camel logo on the products in Oil City, Karns said.
Shortly after moving back to the Oil City area from the Emirates to oversee Side Hustle’s hop farm and brewing operations in the Grove City area, Karns said a cousin told him the economic development authority was looking for a brewery to go in as the main tenant on the first floor of 100 Seneca.
“I always liked this area and my wife does too,” he said. “There is a better work-life balance here. And the cost of living is cheaper…especially for remote workers who can live anywhere.”
