VISTA — Raúl and Lisa Dejú are winding down operations at Guadalupe Brewery Tap House/Cervecería, which the husband-and-wife team owns and operates in downtown Vista.
A closing bash with live music is set for Friday, Nov. 20. The business will be closed by Dec. 1.
As to what comes next, Dejú isn’t quite sure — and it’s not entirely in his control.
“We’d like to move to more of a beer and wine bar, or maybe a restaurant,” he said.
But his former day job as a product manager in software development fell through, and he’s in the midst of finding a new job.
“If I have to move, that’s not going to happen,” he said of the transition to a dining establishment.
The couple owns the building at 631 S. Santa Fe Ave. Dejú said they would look to sell both the building and the business if they move.
After buying the building in 2018, they spent a year renovating it. They removed a suspended ceiling to open up a vaulted, A-frame dining area with the original timbers from 1930. An open-air patio out back gives food trucks a place to serve guests.
The Vista location came about after the couple opened a brewery in Carlsbad in 2014 and learned the city had recently tightened its permitting requirements for tasting rooms. The couple brewed their beer in Carlsbad and served it in Vista. Dejú said they closed the Carlsbad facility last month and have been renting space from other breweries to keep brewing their own recipes.
After growing up with a somewhat nomadic lifestyle. His father, a university professor, moved the family from Mexico to Pittsburgh, where Dejú was born, then to Dayton, Ohio, and back to Mexico. Dejú returned to the United States after he was accepted to the University of California, Davis. He was working in New Jersey, just outside New York City, when his company moved its headquarters to San Diego in 2003.
A few years later, Dejú learned that a neighbor was brewing beer at home and soon began helping him with the process.
“In 2008, I said, ‘Hey, it would be cool if we could open a brewery.’”
Dejú and his neighbor went on to start Cervecería Guadalupe, a craft brewery at a winery in Francisco Zarco, Mexico, north of Ensenada.
“I would go down every weekend at 5 a.m. and make beer. It was doing well, but there were logistical issues.”
After considering a move to Tijuana, Dejú and his wife bought out their partners and opened the Carlsbad brewery in 2014.
They held the Vista tap house’s grand opening in December 2019, just months before the COVID-19 lockdowns.
The tap house is operating on limited hours, which Dejú said are posted on its Instagram page. He said it may open a few more evenings beyond Nov. 20, but the schedule is still in flux.
