Mac's Pub Renovations

What was once home to Mac's Thistle Leather has since become Mac's Pub: A place to enjoy live music and a cold brew. Unfortunately, the building itself isn't much of a stage, and most of the original structure is unchanged. So how can we renovate the pub to meet our current needs?

For years, there have been discussions about building an addition onto the north side of the pub and making it into a proper stage with ample seating for patrons, better traffic flow for beer lovers and barmaids, while keeping the spirit of Mac's alive.

There is more than one way to go about this. Currently, Mac's is one of the few places at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival where you can purchase beer, see live entertainment, and find shelter from the elements. It should be our goal to maintain those benefits. The downside of the pub is it's small size (seating about 20 patrons shoulder-to-shoulder), poor sight-lines, and cramped performance space for entertainers. Mac's Pub isn't even treated as a stage, as there is no slat board to display show times.

Before the current version of the pub, there was talk of keeping the bar under the main roof and leaving the North face of the building open for future improvements. This made sense, since the North wall had partially collapsed, and needed to be repaired. Instead, the roof was shored-up with a few pillars, leaving the broken masonry as is. The bar was built as an exterior addition to the North face sometime later.

A quick view of the landscape around Mac's Pub shows a grade from the North face of the building, heading downhill towards the Chess Board. This space is currently open, and would provide a natural "amphitheater" if a stage were placed towards the bottom of the grade, facing South.

One possible way to achieve this is to build an open-air stage, with a back wall, and a roof that joins with the existing bar addition. The wall and roof could be designed in such a way that they'd provide better acoustics for performers. Extra seating and tables could be place outside of the pub, with wide aisles, and generous sight lines of the stage. This would be a very simple solution, but unfortunately, we would lose the benefit of shelter for our performers and patrons.

A second possibility would be to build a fully-enclosed addition to Mac's Pub, also on the North face of the existing building. This is a bit more complicated than an open-air stage, but would keep all the benefits of the current pub.

So long as we're talking about a full building, why not spice it up a bit? Why does it have to be a plain box? After all, Mac's Pub sits on a Renaissance Festival... why not give it a theme and make it fun?

Rendering of a possible shipwreck-themed addition to Mac's Pub.With these considerations in mind, it's not unreasonable to think that Mac's Pub could one day have an addition that resembled something like half of a shipwreck, covered in vines and moss. Or be made to resemble a brewery, or a giant beer mug! Anything is possible with the proper planning and expertise.

All of these ideas require many conversations, concept renderings, construction plans, blueprints, approvals, inspections, a competent crew, a qualified designer, and of course... funding.

The Dregs are very interested in the project, and are willing to help it along in any way we can. We welcome further ideas and discussions about how we can make Mac's Pub a better experience for everyone!