Bluebird Distilling has spent years building a name for craft spirits and award-winning cocktails out of its Bridge Street home in Phoenixville, and now the distillery has added something new to the menu: handmade pizza. The business has introduced Dough House, a pizzeria concept built around small plates and pies made with local ingredients, inside a newly redesigned space that includes an open kitchen where diners can watch the pizzas come together.
The addition is part of a $2 million overhaul of the 100 Bridge Street building, according to Punch Media, which reported that founder Jared Adkins funded a complete renovation expanding the venue to 120 restaurant seats and 30 bar seats. That investment dwarfs the roughly $1 million Adkins put into converting the site, a formerly dilapidated warehouse, into the original distillery back in 2014, per the same outlet. Adkins has now created more than 30 different spirits at Bluebird since the distillery opened in 2015, according to 6abc.
Adkins told 6abc that the leap from whiskey to pizza dough made more sense than it might seem. He said fermenting dough for pizza felt like a perfect fit after years of creating spirits, a connection rooted in the technical overlap between grain fermentation and dough preparation. Bluebird already mills 100% American-grown grains into flour before steeping and fermenting them in open-top tanks to produce its spirits on a hybrid copper still, according to Drinkhacker.
Inside the Redesigned Bridge Street Space
The revamped building now houses a main dining room with dim lighting and a fireplace, a bar overlooking Phoenixville's main drag, and an outdoor patio with more than two dozen seats, per 6abc's report. The Dough House kitchen itself sits in an open room that lets guests dine and drink while watching pizzas being prepared. The pizza concept and its Neo-Neapolitan food menu were developed with regional pizza consultant Gregorio Fierro, who specializes in dough formulation and live-fire cooking, alongside design firm True Hand Design and architect Paul Salvaggio, Punch Media reported.
Bluebird's move into full food service dovetails with the seasonal rhythm of downtown Phoenixville. The borough runs its PXV Inside Out Open-Air Experience from May through October, closing the 100 and 200 blocks of Bridge Street to vehicle traffic on weekends to create pedestrian-only space for local venues, according to the Borough of Phoenixville. The program began in 2020 during the pandemic and has since become a permanent seasonal fixture, giving Bridge Street businesses like Bluebird a built-in draw for outdoor dining and drinking.
A Growing Portfolio Beyond the Tasting Room
Bluebird's expansion into pizza is the latest step in a broader hospitality strategy. The company also operates Char & Stave, a sister coffee roastery brand launched in 2022 with locations in Chestnut Hill and Ardmore that serves coffee cocktails and spirit-infused beverages, and produces bottled coffee liqueurs including Cafe Amaro. Adkins additionally introduced Townie Whiskey, an everyday whiskey brand meant to round out the company's lineup beyond its craft specialty bottles, which is sold alongside Bluebird's flagship spirits in the expanded retail shop.
The distillery's reach already extends well past Chester County. Bluebird distributes across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Illinois while shipping direct to consumers in more than 45 states, and in 2023 it partnered with country music singer Jordan Davis on a limited release called Bluebird Days Straight American Whiskey, a blend of 6.5-year-old bourbon and wheat whiskey timed to Davis's album of the same name, according to Breaking Bourbon.
Part of a Statewide Craft Spirits Boom
Bluebird's diversification comes as Pennsylvania's craft distilling industry keeps expanding. The state ranks fourth nationally for craft distilleries, with more than 200 active producers contributing $385 million annually to the state economy and supporting over 3,000 jobs, according to the Pennsylvania Distillers Guild, whose data shows the number of craft distilleries in the state has quintupled over the past decade. Bluebird operates under Pennsylvania's Limited Distillery license, which allows craft spirits manufacturers producing up to 100,000 gallons annually to sell alcohol and food directly to consumers for on- or off-premises consumption, per state Liquor Control Enforcement guidelines.
That regulatory framework, built on state liquor law changes since 2012 that eased Prohibition-era restrictions on direct consumer sales, is part of what has allowed businesses like Bluebird to grow from tasting rooms into full hospitality brands spanning spirits, coffee and now pizza. With Dough House now open inside its remodeled Bridge Street home, Bluebird is betting that a wood-fired pizzeria can keep the same doors busy well beyond happy hour.
