After 11 years of serving customers their signature brews, the Iron Horse Brewery Pub is looking to start giving their customers a food menu alongside their beer list.

With no confirmed date, the pub posted their opening is “tentatively set for the first week of March” on their website.

Retail manager Suzanne Vargas said that this addition has been a long time in the works.

“Food has been a talking point ever since we moved into this building over three years ago. We wanted to wait until we knew that we could do it right,” Vargas said. “We are officially starting in December and will open in March.”

Iron Horse beer has a respectable following within the Ellensburg community and the addition of food will bring a new aspect to the brewery.

“Much like our beer, food at [the pub] will include risks and break rules in ingredients as well as pairings. We will serve food unlike anything Ellensburg currently has to offer.” Vargas said.

The owner Greg Parker has similar feelings about the direction the new addition will take the pub.

“We want to close the gap between diversity of options and focused beer and food pairing” Parker said.

Pairing food with the right beer is no easy task, making the pubs choice to hire Kevin “KC” Camarillo as executive chef an important decision.

“Kevin ‘KC’ Camarillo is our executive chef. He has over 25 years of foodservice experience and has helped start over 15 restaurants,” Vargas said. “He will be the man that ensures our food options parallel the high quality of our beer.”

Vargas also gave some insight as to what style of the dishes they will be serving and how food will work into the pub’s dynamics.

“The food orders will be taken and served tableside. We don’t want to lose the social feel at the pub where people strike up conversations with those around them, with this in mind many of our dishes offered will be easily shared among a group.” Vargas said.

The building is larger than it looks from the outside and there is a decent size area located in the back of the pub, for those who are too young to go inside.

There will continue to be a 21 and over policy for indoor seating.

However, for the beer connoisseur driving down I-90, Iron Horse intends to continue its unconventional mentality both beer and food to bring in tourists.

On the Iron Horse website, they state one of the reasons for opening the kitchen was a recent survey conducted by Arnett Muldrow, commissioned by the EDA and Chamber of Commerce, which identified food service as driver for greater tourism numbers.

Ellensburg needs tourism, especially during the summer; tourism helps keep the local businesses going.

Jared Vallejo, director of marketing, made the comment on their website.

“We want to do our part in making Ellensburg a real tourist destination, where all businesses and community members benefit from a prosperous core,” Vallejo said.