CHICKASHA – May 15 is the anticipated opening date of businessman Chet Hitt’s “Town’s End Brewing Co., Powered by El Cheto’s” in downtown Chickasha.
The brewery is housed in the 7,900 square-foot building formerly occupied by the Canadian River Brewing Co.
Town’s End Brewing Co. will offer multiple brands and flavors of beer, Mexican food, and several arcade games for children and adults alike.
The brewery will feature three homemade flavors, Hitt said: Rock Island wheat beer, Lampshade amber ale, and El Cheto’s Mexican lager. Bags containing hops and several varieties of barley are stored in the back.
The brewery can produce 80,000 gallons of ale in its numerous vats, Hitt said. Each tank has a capacity of ten 31-gallon barrels, said brewer Holly Dunham, who co-owned Canadian River Brewing Co. with her husband Nigel. Reverse osmosis equipment will soften Chickasha’s “hard” water, Hitt said.
In the kitchen the staff will prepare traditional Mexican food, “not Tex-Mex,” General Manager Wendy Gibson and Hitt both said. “We’ll have carnitas, three or four different kinds of tacos, a variety of burritos, enchiladas, baked queso, home fried chips and our own special green chili beans,” Gibson said.
A kid’s menu will be available, too, along with homemade buttermilk caramel cake and a “dessert of the week,” Hitt said.
The bar is equipped with a dozen spigots for beer, including Hitt’s three house brands as well as domestic brands and a few imported beers. Beverages also will include soft drinks and a house margarita, and Hitt has applied for a liquor license allowing him to serve mixed drinks.
A special machine will enable the staff to package the homemade brew in 12-ounce aluminum cans and affix labels to them.
For entertainment, more than two dozen arcade games for children and adults alike, including “duck pin” bowling, will be available in a large room at the rear of the building.
A new air conditioning system, fire-suppression sprinklers, natural-gas lines, and new ceiling lights have been installed. Some walls are lined with wood from pallets recycled locally.
The restrooms have been remodeled with old-fashioned faucets and sinks, and repurposed windows from the building now serve as mirrors.
Town’s End is a reference to Hitt’s commercial operation in Apple Valley, California, approximately 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles. “My business there is at the east end of the original business district,” he said.
Hitt said that for two and a half years he lived in Anadarko, where he attended high school, and was back in Oklahoma in 2022 for the 40th reunion of his 1982 high school graduating class. “I was just driving through Chickasha and thought I might find an opportunity here,” he said.
The iconic leg lamp statue was “a selling point” for him.
His redevelopment projects to date have included buying and remodeling the Mill Building, buying and renovating the Savoy Hotel building and purchasing the building next door that houses The Speak, acquiring the Steelman Building downtown, leasing the Rock Island Railroad Depot, acquiring the vacant downtown grain elevator, and now developing the brewery.
In addition, Hitt has provided a 65-seat passenger bus – bearing his “Town’s End” logo and painted in his company’s canary yellow and black color scheme – to shuttle visitors from the Grady County Fairgrounds to downtown Chickasha.