DINING FEATURE
BY MAEGAN KIRBY
THREE DISHES TO TRY
Bianca Pizza ($11 for 8-inch) features chevre cheese, salami, Kalamata olives, red onion, spinach and banana peppers over a garlic and herb sauce.
Fish and chips ($15 for three pieces) includes fresh cod own in fromMaine that is battered with beer from Copperhead Brewery.
Prime Cheeseburger ($13) is a half-pound patty of local prime beef topped with aged Vermont cheddar cheese and served on a house-made bun.
PHOTOS BY MAEGAN KIRBY COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
HoppyKitchen Shipping container-turned kitchen serves up food at Conroe brewery H oppy Kitchen owner Ryan Alworth said the restaurant began as a passion project saw a demand for food. “I live in the neighborhood, and I spent years sitting on a barstool [at Copperhead Brewery] and
He said it was important to him to serve fresh food, so he looked for local vendors for products such as sh, bratwurst and prime beef. He said the kitchen does not have any frozen food; in fact, it does not have a freezer at all. “We started making our own buns, and so ... if we can’t make it, we’re trying to locally source it,” Alworth said. Although he said he is not in a hurry to expand, Alworth said the restaurant has the potential to grow. “I built this with the idea that we could do this at other locations because there’s other breweries and other locations ... that have alcohol and other things and opportunities that could use food,” Alworth said.
Owner Ryan Alworth opened the eatery at Copperhead Brewery.
for the longtime Conroe resident who loves his local brewery. Alworth said he is proud to serve fresh pizza, burgers, sh and chips, and chili to the town his family has lived in for generations, and he does it out of a shipping container converted into a fully functional commercial kitchen. With his grandparents and par- ents both Conroe natives, Alworth said the city was an ideal location. When he decided to open in Decem- ber 2020, Alworth said he wanted to do something di erent by opening his eatery at Copperhead Brewery, where he enjoyed the drinks but
really fell in love with their beer,” Alworth said. “And they didn’t serve peanuts, potato chips, popcorn or anything to eat … and I said, ‘Man, you know, this place would do well if it had food. And let’s not just do food; let’s do good food.’” When he saw pizza ovens for sale on an online auction, Hoppy Kitchen began preparing to open inside a shipping container. “We engineered this [shipping container] to the point where it’s certi ed. It can go into any munici- pality in the United States; it meets all the safety criteria,” Alworth said.
HoppyKitchen 705 Galveston St., Conroe 936-333-3450 www.hoppykitchen.com Hours: Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-8 p.m., closed Sun.
GALVESTON ST.
75
W. LEWIS ST.
N
35
CONROE MONTGOMERY EDITION • APRIL 2022
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