Homewood Brewing Company Owner Focuses On The Finish Line, Not Bumps

HOMEWOOD, IL — Carmela Wallace has never been one to quit anything she started, which makes her current journey toward building a local business from the ground up perfect for her.

Nearly 18 months after reaching an agreement with the Village of Homewood to open Homewood Brewing Company at the site of the former Vice District Brewing, Wallace watched as excavation equipment tore through the earth this week on the space that will house the business once it is completed in the fall of 2024.

For Wallace, the mother of Jarad Anthony Higgins, who was known more commonly as the rapper, singer, and songwriter Juice WRLD, this week comes with plenty of emotion. On Friday, on what would have been her son’s 24th birthday, local officials will gather at the site for a groundbreaking ceremony even though the physical act of moving dirt has already started.

Wallace said Thursday that watching trucks break up the ground on the construction site brought more feelings than perhaps she expected. Although she has been through this process before with other ventures, the official beginning for Homewood Brewing Company is different.

The act of choosing Friday for the ceremony was intentional for Wallace based on her late son’s love of Homewood, where he lived and attended high school before moving to the West Coast when his music career took off.

But Friday will also symbolize all the efforts that have gone into just getting to this point. Although the agreement to purchase the space took place in the summer of 2021, the permitting process, supply chain delays, and other obstacles have made reaching this part of the journey tedious and tiring at times. But through it all, Wallace has kept a vision for opening a welcoming restaurant and brewing at the center of her thoughts.

“Once I start, I’m going to finish,” Wallace told Patch on Thursday. “If I commit to something, I want to do it, and I’m committed to wading through the process. Yeah, it makes you want to pull your hair out at times, but it’s just all a part of the process. But it’s worth it in the end. If you put in the work, the reward is going to be worth it.”

Once the restaurant and brewery are complete, Wallace envisions a comfortable, inviting space built around Homewood’s community spirit and the arts world her son loved so much. She sees the Homewood Brewing Company providing a stage for local musicians and artists. Once the business opens, Wallace hopes to feature a different artist each month, providing them with a space in their hometown where people can come and appreciate locally grown talent.

The business will also create local jobs while providing a local eatery that will be built on good cooking, fresh ingredients, and locally produced beer. This week has been meaningful for Wallace, who remembers when the business was just an idea. And to see it grow into what it has become and will, over the better part of the next two years, end up being, she can’t help but get excited about what’s yet to come.

Throughout the process, Wallace has kept her son and his memory at the center of her thoughts three years after his death from a drug overdose. She knows that he would appreciate the artsy nature of the business as well as the fact that the business will bring a spark to Homewood, Wallace said Thursday.

“He would love what I’m doing because of his love for Homewood and just the vibe that we’re bringing to Homewood,” she said. “It’s just going to be a nice place that is your second home where that sense of community (is present) where you can get a nice, home-cooked meal with fresh ingredients and fresh beer. It’s that sense of community that Homewood is all about.”

Wallace says that given Homewood’s reputation for taking care of those who live there, she sensed that the village needed a place where people could gather and enjoy being around one another.

Although it has taken perhaps longer to get to this point than she expected, Wallace says she knows in time Homewood Brewing, once completed, will be a place the community can embrace in a way that she embraces what Homewood means.

While Friday’s groundbreaking ceremony will be a milestone, Wallace realizes there is still much to be done. But as always, she will focus on getting the work done she says, based on doing it to honor Jarad’s memory and because of her own stubbornness to see the project through to the end.

“We want to create an experience and so it’s important that all the pieces are in line,” she told Patch. “So, the work never stops.

She added: “That’s my focus — the end and that picture. That’s my finish line when we open the doors. That’s my motivation. Groundbreaking is great, but we have to get to the end.”