Busted Cup Brewhouse to open Sept. 19

When passersby stop to look in the windows of the formerly vacant Scotten and Gabeline buildings in the 700 block of Jefferson Street, Kathy Bentz invites them inside for a sneak peek at The Busted Cup Brewhouse she and her husband, Brandon, are set to open on Sept. 19, specializing in high-quality German foods and beer with an American twist, produced locally.

To the back, visitors can see a glassed-in area with brewing vats, where brewing of beer has commenced, and to the right, painted-in, enlarged vintage ads on a brick wall from long-ago Burlington businesses.

To install the true-to-history colorful ads, the images were projected onto the wall, and then drawn on and painted by Niki Bishop Cox, whose husband, Kevin Cox, tattoo artist operating Destination Ink has claimed one of the building’s spaces for a tattoo shop, “and wants to get going as soon as possible,” said Bentz.

The first-floor restaurant is combining food and gaming with consoles installed in each table’s center, loaded up with board games — “Like a giant iPad” — complimented by a vintage shuffleboard.

“We’re calling it a ‘sportsbarcade,’” Bentz explained.

“I’m just excited to see everybody in the community, all those faces we’ve seen peeking in the windows now and then. We are excited to be able to see people face to face. We hope they enjoy the space just as much as we have working on it,” she said.

The Bentzes are saving as many of the long-obscured traces of former occupants, such as doodles, a Superior Ambulance sign, two cases of Bubble Up, uncovered during deconstruction, as they can.

“There was a card for a city councilman buried in one of the walls. There are a few locations on the walls where I can see that someone has figured the square footage of the flooring, so I am trying to keep those things.

“There were some empty Schlitz cans in the ceiling. I am thinking it had to be some worker in the ’40s who on a Friday afternoon got done with work and sat up there and drank beer,” she said.

The Bentzes purchased the Scotten and Gabeline buildings in November 2021, with plans to renovate the combined 30,000-square-foot space into a market, brewery and restaurant.

Chefs have been hired, and Bentz said her brother-in-law has come to Burlington from Texas to be the brew master.

“He has a one year contract, and is training Walker Davenport to be the brew master,” Bentz said.

The 724 Jefferson Street property also has five additional retail business spaces, and two AirBnb rental apartments.

Poppie’s Specialty Market is a family investment.

The market’s name honors Kathy’s late grandfather, Russel Dakin, who left his land to the Bentzes.

The sale of that land allowed them to pursue the Jefferson Street project.

The grocery/meat market will retail the restaurant’s menu ingredients.

“There will be other things as well, but that will kind of be our focus — that you can just replicate at home what our chefs have done here,” said Bentz.

Over the summer, Busted Cup successfully premiered and sampled some of their specially-made goodies including an array of sausages, jerky, snack sticks and bacon at the Jefferson Street Farmers Market.

During a downtown tour, Brandon, who was taken by German cuisine while visiting the country, told The Hawk Eye at the time that a menu was in the works, and a tasting panel was established in Roseville, Illinois.

That is home to their meat processing and equipment manufacturing business, Fusion Tech, that will supply the sausages and other fare.

The kitchen and full restaurant will be on the second story, accessible by stairs and elevator, with a capacity of 300.

All beers will be brewed on site. Brews on tap will be the American-type Lager, and thicker and more flavorful, European types will be brewed longer, as done in Germany, where beer production has been perfected.

To prepare for the opening, the Bentzes are holding staff interviews from 2-4 p.m. Aug. 27, and noon-4 p.m. Aug. 28.

Over their more than 100-year histories, the Scotten and neighboring Gabeline buildings housed a number of businesses and services.

Earlier renovation work also had turned up some unexpected finds.

The removal of the east drywall on the second story of the Scotten building revealed murals painted onto the exterior wall of the Gabeline building advertising buggies once sold by Gabeline’s New Implement and Buggy House.

In the basement of the Scotten building is a bank vault, likely first used by Farmers and Merchants Bank and Trust.

The old boiler that serviced the building in the 1900s still remains, as do the coal chutes that ran beneath city sidewalks.

There have also been less-than-desirable discoveries, such as six layers of roof stacked one on top of the other.

And then there was the odd discovery of something that likely pre-dates Iowa’s statehood.

While digging an elevator shaft in May in the basement of the Scotten building, workers found about a dozen shank and jaw bones.

At the time, Brandon Bentz told The Hawk Eye that judging by the teeth, they came from bison.

Iowa was once home to bison, but by the late 1800s, they were nearly extinct.

Bentz told The Hawk Eye that the bones will be put in a display case somewhere within the building once work is complete, along with information about the buildings’ history.

“This has been a pharmacy. There was a bank downstairs. The ambulance service was here,” Bentz said. “It’s been everything.”

The Gabeline building was constructed in 1912 by Burlington native and Chicago businessman Samuel Scotten for Jacob Gabeline’s implement/farm business. That remained there through the 1930s, according to State Historical Society of Iowa records.

In 1915, the three-story Gabeline building was joined on its west side by the two-story Scotten building, also constructed by Scotten. The two buildings marked the development of the west section of Jefferson Street, which previously had been occupied by smaller buildings. The east section of Jefferson was home to businesses and offices aplenty.

The second floor of the Scotten building, complete with a ballroom, was used as the Knights of Columbus Hall through the 1930s.

The building also included four storefronts along the first floor.

They would be occupied by a number of businesses and professionals over the years — including druggist Charles Froid, Farmers and Merchants Bank and Trust, a branch of Sutter Drug Co., a tavern, and auto accessory, liquor and drug stores — but it was seldom that each of the retail spaces were used at once.

Directories referenced by the State Historical Society of Iowa indicate there was frequent turnover and it was not uncommon for one or two of the spaces to be vacant.

The Gabeline building, meanwhile, continued to house a farm implement business — first Gabeline’s, then Burlington Farm Machinery Co. and International Harvester, then McCormick Deering Store and International Harvest — until 1940, when it was listed as vacant.

In 1942, it saw use by the National Youth Administration, then the Northrup Hatchery in 1945.

Occupancy at the buildings stabilized from the 1940s through the 1960s with the arrival of the Sears Roebuck and Co. Farm Store, which opened across multiple storefronts of both buildings and remained there through the 1960s.

That business would be joined by Culligan Soft Water Service, Checker Cab, Yellow Cab, Budget Rent-A-Car, Superior Ambulance Service, and Electric Design and Manufacturing Corp.

By the late 1960s, the Knights of Columbus had left the second-story space and its ballroom, and it went on to sit vacant.

Sears eventually moved out, and, in 1967, the Gabeline building was occupied for a time by a janitorial, pool and spa supply company called Six Flags. That, too, would leave.

Jefferson Street saw a resurgence, and demand for downtown storefronts has continued to grow, inching up Jefferson Street toward Central Avenue with the additions of Dave’s Not Here, Wake n Bake, Pookie’s Thai Cuisine, the Nana and Me and more.

The lower-level storefronts of the Scotten and Gabeline buildings would continue to see use, including by businesses such as Riverview Designs, which recently moved to its other location in Carman, Illinois, and Star Asylum Tattoos and Trends, which will move to a yet-to-be-decided location by November.

The upper levels remained vacant, windows broken and boarded over.

Those windows have been replaced by dark bronze, modernized industrial-style windows. The doors leading into the building will be similar to the windows, and eight feet tall.

“The project in general is absolutely fantastic,” Burlington Mayor Jon Billups told The Hawk Eye. “That building, despite having good owners, has been needing some tender loving care. (The Bentzes) plans will not only re-energize the building, but they’ll re-energize the 700 block.

“It’s kind of amazing. When I was a kid, everything was from the 600 block down to the riverfront, and now you see this progression from the 600 block up to Central. It’s just what we always dreamed of back in the ‘80s that there would be thriving businesses all the way up and down Jefferson and the side roads.”

Former Hawk Eye Editor Michaele Niehaus contributed to this story.

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