Riverhead Brew House, downtown’s newest eatery, opens on the Peconic riverfront

Downtown Riverhead has a new brewery and restaurant. The Riverhead Brew House, Lily Flanagan’s Restaurant Group’s newest eatery is now open for business.

The Riverhead Brew House sits on the corner of McDermott Avenue and Heidi Behr Way, located on the south side of the Riverview Lofts apartment building with a view of the Peconic River. The restaurant takes the space formerly occupied by Peconic County Brewing Company, which closed last year. 

The restaurant held a soft opening last weekend and is now open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m..

“We’re excited to get going here,” Niall Crowe, the founder of Lily Flanagan’s Restaurant Group, said in an interview on Tuesday.

The restaurant serves the food you’d typically see at the bar, including burgers, sandwiches, tacos, wings, salads and pizza. “We’re trying to use the freshest ingredients and to make ours as good, if not better, than everywhere else,” Crowe said. Crowe said the Bavarian pretzel is a must-have. 

The location will double as a restaurant and a brewery. The brewery will start by producing a hard seltzer, a pilsner and a session IPA, Crowe said. “The plan is to brew here and then to distribute it to our own restaurants,” he said. 

The biggest advantage, Crowe said, is the location. “Obviously, the Peconic is beautiful,” he said. The outside deck overlooking the Peconic River has been redone, Crowe said, improved with furniture and games like cornhole, giant Jenga and giant Connect 4.

In addition to serving beer, the Riverhead Brew House has a full liquor license, allowing it to also serve cocktails. 

This is the seventh restaurant currently open under the ownership of Lily Flanagan’s Restaurant Group, which Crowe started in 1987. Originally a baker in Ireland, Crowe immigrated to the U.S. when he was 22, he said. He started as a dishwasher, became a bartender and saved his money to purchase his first restaurant.