Business Beat: B-BP Alumnus is Brewing Up Success at the Tap Room

In Business Beat, Patch talks to local business owners. Want to be featured? Email judy.mottl@patch.com.

Bayport-Blue Point High School graduate (Class of 2002) James Bonanno, 28, co-owns with David Johnson, Scottie Campbell and John Peragine. The restaurant opened in April 15, 2011 after moved out of the 114 West Main Street, Patchogue location to its current location next to the . Both restaurants are related as Perabell is owned by Peragine and Campbell.

Patch: What was the reason behind opening The Tap Room?

Bonanno: A couple things, one was seeing how alive Patchogue is and has become, two seeing the craft beer revolution and how micro beers and craft beers are growing and people are really acquiring different tastes for good specialty beers. There is already a lot of good beer in Patchogue with , , , has great beer on tap, but we saw we can come in and offer a great selection of beer and provide real quality food and that's what we've done.

Patch: What are the main differences between The Tap Room and its sister restaurant Perabell?

Bonanno: They are two totally different places, they are fine casual dining, we're more pub fare, kind of in between pub fare and casual dining, better than your average bar food but we're a little more laid back, obviously we stay open later, concentrate more on the beer.

Patch: Do you brew here too?

Bonanno: No we don't brew here, but we have three towers, we theme our towers, the import tower with import beers, the american craft tower we feature different american craft beers from all over the country, and the Blue Point tower where we feature six lines of just beers from the Blue Point Brewery. We work closely with Blue Point, we have the Blue Point pint club, anyone who joins the club we track how many Blue Points they have, so every time they order a Blue Point we swipe their card and you can earn different rewards along the way.

Patch: What is coming up in the future for the restaurant?

Bonanno: We're doing a pumpkin fest where we'll feature a pumpkin takeover and feature a lot of different pumpkin ales from around the country. We have a Oktober fest coming up where we will serve German, Bavarian type, food. We'll have a celebratory keg. We'll have great specials for Monday night Football, some fun pools for people to get involved in and obviously we have the .

Patch: What's your favorite part of being a co-owner of a business in Patchogue?

Bonanno: I grew up right here, so growing up my whole life seeing the transformation of Patchogue and all of the wonderful people coming in, we have great customers, we have a loyal customer base we see a lot of the same faces and just a lot of great people in Patchogue.

Patch: What is the biggest challenge of being a co-owner of the restaurant?

Bonanno: As far as a restaurant or bar on Main Street, it's a good thing and a bad thing, there's a wonderful array of great seasonal waterfront restaurants in the Patchogue area which are not necessarily in every township, so it brings people to the area from other towns so that's a good thing. But the challenge is there are a lot more choices, moreso just for the summer time, not in the winter, because people have a lot of choices between Fire Island and all of the seasonal waterfront places in town so it spreads the customers a little bit. So it's a challenge and a con and a pro because it does bring people into the Patchogue area from surrounding towns but then again there's a lot of places and a lot of choices so that's a summertime challenge.

Patch: What's your favorite aspect of living in Patchogue Village?

Bonanno: I would say the quality of people, as far as restaurants go the diversity between Columbian Food, Barbecue Food, Italian cuisine and American restaurants there are a lot of options for people and that's nice. And just obviously like everyone being so close to the water and be able to go to Davis Park, it's definitely a nice area.

Patch: What other aspects of the restaurant would you like to describe?

Bonanno: We always have something going on. Monday nights we feature $4 specials for Long Island breweries during the football season. We do $5 select appetizers.

On Tuesday night through the whole year is our Burger Night. We always feature $5 burgers and if you are a gold member in the Blue Point Club, which means you've 25 pints or more, every Tuesday you get half price Blue Points.

Wednesday night we always have Trivia all year, starts at 9:30 p.m., we have a great crowd always packed for trivia. Thursday night we do our Wing Night, we do $15 all-you-can drink from 8 p.m.-10 p.m. PBR and all you can eat wings, and Monday to Friday 3 p.m.-7 p.m. for Happy Hour we do half-price mussels, half price beer, half price draft and half-price wine. And we have live music every Friday night.