Sunday was like any other at Tempe's Bandersnatch Brew Pub, except that it was the last for owners Joe and Addie Mocca.
The Moccas said goodbye to hundreds of loyal Bandersnatch customers and football fans, while several former employees flew into Tempe to work one last time for the Moccas. The couple sold the popular bar last week, worried that the city of Tempe would take control of the property via eminent domain and tear down the building.
"This particular day has been a weird one," Addie Mocca, 51, said after the midday Bandersnatch crowd left for the Arizona Cardinals-Green Bay Packers football game at Sun Devil Stadium. "We've been too busy to really be emotional about it. The crew was working like Bander is going on for another 12 years."
ASU graduates Matt Engstrom and Barrett Rinzler, the owners of Scottsdale nightclub Martini Ranch, take ownership of Bandersnatch today and will shut down the bar to renovate the interior, which includes removing the custom-built brewery. The bar, which will keep the Bandersnatch name "indefinitely," according to Engstrom, should re-open in time for the ASU football team's Oct. 4 home game against the University of Southern California.
The Moccas sold to Engstrom and Rinzler because, Addie Mocca said, "the city is going to tear down the building [eventually] whether we sell or not."
The city has a conceptual plan to destroy the current building, which has been at 125 E. Fifth St. since 1975, and replace it with an outdoor plaza by 2020, Tempe principal planner Neil Calfee told The State Press Thursday.
Engstrom said once the city claims eminent domain of the property that he and Rinzler would work with Tempe officials to meet the city's needs.
Addie Mocca said four former employees from Chicago, San Diego and Sacramento, Calif., flew in to help out for the Moccas' last day, and she received phone calls from former regular customers in Ireland and Sweden wishing the Moccas good luck.
Although the new owners have promised the Moccas that they will keep all of the current employees on staff, Bandersnatch cook and ASU construction senior Pat Emerson said only half are expected to continue working for the new ownership.
"We don't really work for Bandersnatch; we work for Joe and Addie. They're the backbone of this place," Emerson said. "There are a lot of us who are going to see how the new Bandersnatch works out, but the rest are saying goodbye [Sunday]."
Paul Hickman, a Bandersnatch regular since 1990 and a recent graduate of ASU's law school, said he was very disappointed with the sale.
"It's a shame. This has been such a great place to come and rally before football games," Hickman said during Sunday's pre-game festivities at Bandersnatch. "People need to start fighting city hall."
Addie Mocca said she and her husband are considering opening a new brewery in the West Valley once the Cardinals' new stadium opens in Glendale for the 2006 season.
Reach the reporter at joe.watson@asu.edu.
