Jack’s Brewing Company, the ‘Cheers of Fremont,’ to close after more than two decades

FREMONT — Jack’s Brewing Company, an adored Fremont brewpub and restaurant, will raise a glass one last time on New Year’s Eve, marking the end of a more than two decade era.

Known by some locals as “the Cheers of Fremont,” Jack’s first opened in 1999 in the Fremont Hub, a popular outdoor shopping center. Tricia and Brian Sparling took over the bar from its previous owners during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.

Having been regulars at the bar for years, they were eager to start their new business venture.

“My husband and I always thought that as a retirement gig, hospitality was always something we’d think about,” Tricia, a local Fremont teacher, told this news organization. “We were just coming out of COVID, things were opening up and you were allowed to go outside. We thought, ‘What an opportunity to get into something we knew well.’”

The micro-brewery, pub and restaurant sports a dark-stained horseshoe wood bar, high-top tables and cozy booths. It was well known as a hot-spot during Sunday and Monday Night Football.

Tricia, a 49ers fan, and Brian, a Green Bay Packers loyalist who grew up in Wisconsin, regularly hosted friendly rivalry watch parties when their teams played each other. Brian personally added Jack’s to the informal list of nationwide Packers bars on PackersEverywhere.com – a point of pride for the Cheesehead who has lived in California for the last 30 years.

“I wanted to push the Packer boundary a little bit,” Brian said.

Jack’s taps are poured from a list of locally made beers, including six brewed in-house: Jack’s IPA, a Boys of Summer wheat pilsner, an amber ale, a pale ale and a porter. In 2024, Jack’s celebrated 25 years of service with a limited run of “Witches Brew,” an 11.3% apple-flavored hybrid brew that was wildly popular for its single release.

The menu features classic pub food alongside heftier meals.

Regular open mic events at Jack’s featured a wide range of bands for live performances and also served as a meeting place for many, including a local group who enjoyed using their back room to play Rummikub, a tile-based game made for two to four players.

Although it is beloved locally by scores of regular patrons, especially nearby sports fans and families, Jack’s will close at the end of the year.

“We’ve loved a lot of it, but what we didn’t know was that the restaurant had some major repair issues. It was about a year in that everything started to break,” Tricia said. “The hits kept coming and I think it was the universe telling us it was time to close up.”

The Sparlings said rising operating costs, declining sales and major repairs ran their well dry, wiping out Jack’s future. The kitchen’s walk-in refrigerator, gas ranges and ovens, sinks and plumbing fixtures, are all in disrepair, Tricia said, among a longer list of other problems.

“It’s not like a GoFundMe would fix this stuff. It’s beyond what the GoFundMe would do,” Tricia said. “There’s no wiggle room. Anything I had to give to this place is gone.”

By now, Tricia estimates the couple has spent over $300,000 on infrastructure repairs and upgrades, including a major overhaul of the kitchen in the last four years. Additionally, they said the state’s minimum wage increases ran up operating costs for their staff of about 20, some of whom have worked there for over two decades.

As a last blow to their bottom line, the couple said they were recently served a lawsuit over alleged noncompliance with disability access to the restaurant. The couple struck a deal, and the lawsuit was dropped, Tricia said.

“All of those things contributed to making this industry hard, and people are just drinking less,” Tricia said. “I just keep crying about it. I’m really upset. I’m going to miss everybody.”

The pair said they had no prior restaurant experience when they first reopened the bar six months after they got married in 2021. But with more than four years of experience behind them now, they said they’ve learned a treasure trove of lessons in the business.

“We really wanted to get involved in a restaurant in our community because we really wanted to keep jobs in our community, help our community and keep our prices competitive so we could offer a place for families to go out,” Tricia said.

Tricia said she fondly remembers learning how to file payroll, and keep the financial books — something she’d never done before owning a bar. She said she immediately found her rhythm as the administrator and financial lead of the establishment, while Brian quickly took to the logistics and operations management.

Brian did the grocery shopping every week for the last four years — except once when he got sick with COVID, and, much to Tricia’s discontent, she handled it.

He offered some advice for any prospective restaurant owners looking to get into the business.

“We had a lot of help along the way, and a lot of characters in the cast here, so that really does make it easier,” Brian said. “Don’t just read books. Talk to people, make sure everything is working the way you’d expect it to.”

Jack’s will be open until New Year’s Eve for the bar’s last hurrah, after which the couple hopes another dedicated owner will eventually come in to reopen the spot again for the community.

“We will stay open until the beer runs out,” Brian said.