Bottle Shop Expands With New Blue & White Pub in Downtown State College

What began as a plan to purchase and renovate a longtime West Beaver Avenue bottle shop has grown into a new pub six years later.

The Blue & White Bottle Shop, which has operated at 222 W. Beaver Ave. since September 2021, opened the attached Blue & White Pub at the end of August, completing a multiyear expansion that owner Ben Lippincott had envisioned from the start.

The new pub is in a “soft opening period,” however, the menu is already beginning to take shape around scratch-made food and regional specialties, with plans to add rotating international food and drink offerings.

Lippincott, who previously owned both Bradley’s Cheesesteaks and Hoagies locations in State College, said discussions to purchase the property, formerly home to Brewsky’s, began as the COVID-19 pandemic was underway in 2020. 

It took until the fall of 2021 before the deal was closed and the bottle shop opened.

“The plan from there on in was to spend the next year or two renovating the space and turning it into what I was hoping to make out of it,” he said. “The long term effects of COVID and supply chain shortages, contractor issues made the one or two year timeline foolish.

“The plan was to get to where we are now, probably two years ago, but you know, kind of took the slow boat. With us doing a lot of the work, and then with family and small business, the implications of family and career changes with my wife, and so we’re now to where I wanted to get it to be, and the bottle shop’s been great.” 

The bottle shop itself was the first stage of the larger plan. Last year, Lippincott renovated the space with the addition of a “beer cave.”

“The transition to Blue and White was kind of a two-stage thing,” he said. “It was redoing Chuck’s (owner of Brewsky’s) bottle shop, the one he had, and then the new one that we’ve had over for a year with the beer cave. As far as the bottle shop goes, that was a great change. We had a lot of old equipment, inefficient equipment, air handlers, everything — it was all from the ‘80s. Just swapping over into a beer cave with new equipment and new air handlers in a new space was already a good change for the bottle shop.”

Lippincott said the new beer cave uses about 30% of the energy required by the previous equipment while holding more beer cold. 

But the bottle shop was never intended to be the finished product. 

“Opening the pub was part of the master plan,” he shared. “It was just always going to be staged, and it was always going to have a couple different movements to it…We operated the one piece while completely demoing the other side of the wall, and then we built the new bottle shop, and then flipped, and then demoed the existing bottle shop, and then built the bar, and then stitched them together.

“Every square inch of the place was demoed down to concrete and cinder block and rebuilt. It’s a first generation space at this point. The entire thing started off on graph paper with me drawing it, and kind of went from there.” 

The extensive renovation became a hands-on project for Lippincott and his father, which was his glass half-full during the several delays. 

“One of the good things that came of it even though it took too long was that I got to do a lot of it with my dad,” he said. “He was a big part of helping me get it done, and we did a lot of the work ourselves, and ended up kind of acting as the contractor rather than just the owner.” 

The opportunity also marked a major change from Lippincott’s years operating Bradley’s. He closed both of the longtime cheesesteak restaurants, retiring his downtown store in 2022, to focus on the bottle shop. 

“Bradley’s was 14 years of my life making cheesesteaks and growing it,” Lippincott said. “This opportunity was worthwhile to retract from the two restaurants for the one liquor license. The other thing was with Bradley’s, I paid $700,000 in rent over the course of 14 years, and have really nothing to show for that expense. But in this opportunity, it provided the ability of buying the property under our feet, controlling our destiny…That was a big thing for me, and kind of made the sacrifice of closing the two the cheesesteak places that I loved and worked in every single day for a decade and a half almost for the opportunity to make a big leap.” 

The new pub enters a downtown bar and restaurant landscape that has continued to add new businesses in recent years. Lippincott said he saw room for an affordable option that could equally serve Penn State students and local residents. 

“I saw the market in State College for the bars as everything that was coming in was high end, high execution,” he shared. “You know, $16 cocktails, or a franchise or corporate-end business like Buffalo Wild Wings and Brothers. I guess I just wanted to shoot right down the middle and make sure that it returns a good value for an experience, and that we’re making a good third space for the student body and the community members.

“I want to try to draw community members as well as serving students that are here, but I just want to do it in a fair, good value for you, for the people, the patrons that come in…I’m aiming to be dynamic and kind of hit everything I can.”

The business is located near the Beaver Avenue parking garage and plans to participate in the borough’s merchant parking validation program for customers, which allows businesses to validate customer parking. 

“We’re the furthest west on the edges for a downtown bar,” Lippincott said. “We’re just enough inside downtown to get the atmosphere, but you know, not far enough that it kind of comes with all the rest of the stuff that people have a tendency of complaining about downtown. So we have ease of parking with the garage right next to us.” 

Lippincott said his experience at Bradley’s taught him how different State College’s customer base can be throughout a single day. 

Bradley’s customer base was “dynamic” throughout the day, serving professionals working downtown and on campus in the afternoon, then the bar and after-bar crowds at night.

“My intention is to do the same thing to kind of cater to the dynamic nature of State College,” Lippincott said. “Make sure that we’re matching it, make sure that at the right times a day we are presenting the right things for the different customer base.” 

Lippincott said he wants the Blue & White Pub to bring a more polished feel to the traditional neighborhood dive bar. The concept, he said, keeps the relaxed atmosphere and comfortable space people expect from a dive, in a more modest and polished way.

The Blue & White Pub’s menu is centered on scratch-made bar food, sandwiches and regional specialties. Lippincott said the kitchen will use fresh ingredients and prepare items in-house as the menu continues to expand.

Among the current offerings are chicken sandwiches made with chicken breasts that are marinated and breaded before being fried, along with wings and burgers. Lippincott also plans to add cheesesteaks, drawing on his years operating Bradley’s Cheesesteaks in State College.

Another planned addition is a South Philly-style roast pork sandwich. The pork will be roasted and sliced in-house.

The pub plans to introduce recurring specials, including “Yings and Wings” on Tuesdays, pairing Yuengling with wings, and “Banquets and Burgers” on Wednesdays. 

Thursdays are expected to feature “Post Grad Living, Undergrad Pricing,” with discounts on premium and call-brand drinks. On Fridays, the pub will have its “Friday Night Lites” happy hour special, targeting both State High families, as they travel before and after football games, as well as Penn State students.

Another planned series, called “International Studies,” will feature drinks and food inspired by different countries.

“We’re going to take a beer, a liquor and some food items from different countries, and work our way around the world throughout the semesters…What I’d like to do is work with some other restaurants in town,” Lippincott said. 

The first installment is expected to focus on Germany and Austria to celebrate Oktoberfest. 

Lippincott hopes to partner with local restaurants to add authenticity when the series highlights their cuisines and cultures. He wants to eventually highlight Mediterranean, Indian and Mexican cuisines, to name a few. 

As the pub moves beyond its soft opening, Lippincott said the business will continue expanding its hours as staff training is completed and operations become more established.

“I’m so excited about this,” he said. “It’s been a lot of years building and a lot of time and effort, and I’m just really excited to get into it.”

For now, The Blue & White Pub is currently open from 5 to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 5 to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. 

The Blue & White Bottle Shop is open from 3 to 11 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and from 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. The bottle shop will also open at 8 a.m. for Penn State football home games.