The Long Pour: Looking back at Hunter-Gatherer’s 3 decade reign on Columbia’s Main St.
More than 3 decades ago, Kevin Varner spent a semester studying in Scotland.
What no one could know at the time is that the visit would ultimately lead to Columbia history.
Varner is the founder of Hunter-Gatherer Brewery & Ale House, which opened at 900 Main St., just south of the SC State House, in 1995. It was Columbia’s first microbrewery, and through the course of three decades it evolved into a cherished meeting place for friends and family, a cozy date night spot for couples and a well-respected restaurant.
But after nearly 30 years of pouring house-brewed beers and serving up burgers and more, the Main Street Hunter-Gatherer location is in its final days. Varner announced recently that the brewery’s current lease at 900 Main is coming to an end, and the last day for the ale house will be Dec. 28. The Hunter-Gatherer Hangar location on Jim Hamilton Boulevard, which debuted in 2018, will remain open.
The University of South Carolina Development Foundation, which makes real estate purchases for the benefit of USC, bought the property at 900 Main St. in October. While no firm plans have been announced for the building, foundation officials have said the purchase was made with plans for the future growth of the university, particularly in the area south of the State House, in mind.
The coming closure of the Main Street Hunter-Gatherer has been a bittersweet moment for Varner, 54. He opened the brewery as a young man, and watched it grow and evolve through the years. As the final days of the location wind down, he has been flooded with memories, both his own and those that have been shared with him by longtime customers.
“It’s just a little bit of sadness,” Varner told The State. “I’ve had a few weeks of knowing this was going to happen. It’s just a long time we were open, and I was only 25 when we opened up. A lot of family has been involved. My mom worked with me the whole time, and my brother helped me a bunch getting open.
“There are a lot of happy memories. I met my wife there. Kids had birthday parties there. All kinds of family occasions.”
From Seattle to Main Street
While Hunter-Gatherer became a centerpiece in downtown Columbia’s food and drink scene in the last three decades, the seeds of its creation started in another part of the world, when Garner was just a student.
“I went to school in Scotland for a semester and kind of found out that beer was different than just drinking something out of a can,” he said, with a chuckle. “I kind of just fell in love with the idea that you can make beer.”
After he returned to the U.S. and began attending USC, Varner started making beer at home, even operating a 20-gallon brewery out of his apartment.
“I had a three-keg beer cooler in my apartment and I made beer every week or two,” Varner said. “It was just a great, fun atmosphere.”
Shortly after he graduated college, Varner headed out to Seattle, Washington, where he worked for Hale’s Ales brewery for more than two years. Hale’s Ales was a trendsetting brewery in the Northwest that started in 1983 and remained a player on the beer scene until its closure in 2022.
While brewpubs were a common sight in places such as Seattle three decades ago, South Carolina was a different story. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that the state Legislature approved laws that allowed for brewpubs, and Hunter-Gatherer became one of the first microbreweries in the state, and the first in the capital city.
Varner said he spent months looking for just the right spot to land Hunter-Gatherer back in 1995. Ultimately, he decided to give it a try at 900 Main.
“It was imperfect,” he said. “We looked at buildings in Columbia for almost six months. We initially thought Main Street was too small, but eventually we thought it was the right spot.”
The building had to be gutted and remodeled at the time, Varner said, with work aimed at giving the place a comfortable, natural feel.
Once it opened its doors, Varner said Hunter-Gatherer steadily built its reputation and its business.
“In the beginning it was pretty tough,” Varner said. “But, we opened up with a big bang and a lot of customers. Then we sort of slowly tapered off and we found out that our most loyal customers were people who had lived in other places or were from other places, and they had been around breweries before.
“Gradually, over a couple years, it just got busier and busier. And we’ve stayed a busy place most of the time.”
‘Lots of memories were made’
Phill Blair knows a few things about pouring beers in or near downtown Columbia.
Currently the owner of the popular WECO Bottle and Biergarten in West Columbia, he also was the owner of the longtime subterranean watering hole The Whig, which was located at the corner of Main and Gervais streets from 2005 to 2022.
But in the early 2000s, Blair lived in an upstairs apartment on south Main Street, perched above the original location of the Nickelodeon Theater. The apartment was across the street and just up the block from Hunter-Gatherer, and Blair said he had a near-nightly ritual.
“I lived there, and every day at the end of the day was going across the street for a beer,” Blair recalled fondly. “The food was always great. In its heyday, I would argue it was the best restaurant in town.”
The food menu at the Main Street H-G expanded overtime, growing from simple offerings such as hummus and bean dip to burgers and even elegant specials such as braised lamb shank.
“It was real gradual,” Varner said of the kitchen’s evolution. “I opened the place with a couple friends of mine running the kitchen. None of us had any experience running a kitchen. The food was good but it was very limited. It had some of the same things we sell now, like hummus and bean dip. We didn’t even have a grill at first. The first things we did that were like sandwiches were really gyros.”
“Then, over time, sort of depending on who was running the kitchen, it gradually got a little bit better. Right now Lee Henshaw has been running the kitchen and he’s definitely the best we’ve ever had.”
Matt Kennell is the CEO of the City Center Partnership, the group that advocates for businesses and property owners on the section of Main Street north of the State House. And while Hunter-Gatherer is on the other side of the State House and out of Kennell’s jurisdiction, so to speak, he notes he has long admired the brewery and what it has meant for downtown Columbia.
Kennell said Hunter-Gatherer’s operation at 900 Main was a sort of trailblazer for Columbia.
“Lots of memories were made there,” Kennell said. “They were not only one of the first craft breweries, but also one of the first businesses to take one of those historic buildings and kind of define the place. ... It showed that those old, traditional buildings had a character that just can’t be replicated.”
As the Hunter-Gatherer Main Street spot enters its last days, Varner is enthusiastic about the future of the H-G Hangar location. That open, airy space has been a hit, particularly on warm weekend days when large groups often gather there for beer, pizza and more.
As for the comments and heartfelt tributes he has heard from customers since announcing the coming H-G Main Street closing, Varner said he has treasured them.
“That’s what I wanted to create when I opened the place. Kind of a sense of community, a place where people of different stripes could come in,” Varner said. “Somewhere relaxing without televisions, all those sort of things, made the experience for certain people. Certain people really felt comfortable there.”
