When Bootleg Hill Honey Meads opened in downtown Davenport in late 2018, they had no idea the tsunami of troubles would follow in the next five-plus years.
Two major floods, massive loans, a worldwide pandemic, a hostile takeover fight, inflation, and brutal winter weather.
Bill Harris of Davenport, the son of Bootleg Hill founder and owner Rick Harris, recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to help the alcohol business (wine made from honey) survive.
Many windows outside and inside the unique taproom at 321 E. 2nd St., Suite 200, display flyers that say “Save The Meadery” with a QR code for the GoFundMe – which has raised $975 toward a $10,000 goal as of Monday, March 4.
“We do not do this for the money — we do it for our passion of mead, respect for bees and love of our community,” Bill Harris wrote for the web page. “Many people tell me how much they love the meadery.”
Bill moved from Chicago to help with his father’s business.
Bootleg Hill was founded in 2013 by Rick Harris, an avid homebrewer in the local home brewing community who noticed a lack of meads in the local market. He decided to start his own meadery in his basement in East Moline, which was actually the former home of a 1920s bootlegger.
The house was in a neighborhood once referred to as Bootleg Hill. After converting his basement to a production-only meadery, he set out across the state of Illinois self-distributing, and today the meadery products can be found throughout select stores across Illinois and Iowa.
The Davenport taproom offers the ability to try many different varieties of meads and mead cocktails (made with honey from bees in the region), and also serves beer and wine — including varieties no one else has, such as several Belgian beers and a Bavarian Pilsner from the world’s oldest brewery.
‘A terrible thing’
“It would be a terrible thing for the community to not have Bootleg Hill,” Rick said Monday. “It would take away part of our community.”
He employs another son (Ian), in addition to a few other staff, but Rick said he doesn’t take a salary and has worked seven days a week for 10 years. His wife is a special education teacher at Davenport’s Fillmore School, with 34 years experience.
“We attract a lot of tourists and if the meadery is not here, that’s not gonna happen,” Rick said. “I think it’s essential.”
“We’re just trying to keep things afloat,” Bill said. “It’s stressful because conditions have definitely changed since we began.”
“When you buy mead, you’re actually supporting beekeepers, so if we can’t afford to pay beekeepers, we need to keep supporting Iowa beekeepers and Iowa agriculture,” he said. “We’re not quitting, we’re not trying to sell the business to get out.
“We have a passion for mead and we’ve gotten really far – we started in a basement and we’re here now,” Bill said. “We can’t give up.”
The 2019 flood (late April) downtown happened just a few months after Bootleg Hill had opened in November 2018, forcing it to close for a month. Several challenges cascaded on top of that disaster.
“Inflation is really bad, the price of honey has gone up,” Bill said. “It’s been hard to keep up with it and we try really hard to keep our prices down.”
“We’re deliberately not raising our prices,” Rick said. “It’s tough. I think inflation is the worst thing that could happen to anybody.”
“We’re basically surviving, we just need help,” he said. “We went through a lot of money to be here today. We’re bringing diversity to the community. You take away Bootleg Hill, then you take away the diversity.”
“We’re going to survive, with or without anybody’s help,” he said.
Stopping a sports bar
In 2022, other partners in the business had wanted to change it to a European-themed sports bar, with lots of TVs. Rick and Bill had to raise over $20,000 to take over as sole owners.
“If we would have went that route, we’d have TVs all around and we decided not to do that. We didn’t want to be a sports bar,” Rick said. “We wanted to remain a meadery, because the meadery is very important. There’s no one else in this area that makes mead.”
There is just one other meadery in the state of Iowa, he noted.
“People like coming here, they love being involved,” Rick said. “We want to keep the identity of meadery.”
They owe hundreds of thousands of dollars altogether in bank loans, Rick said. They dealt with another flood downtown in spring 2023, but didn’t close.
“We don’t believe in closing,” Rick said. “It was tough.”
“What I would like to see is the city of Davenport step up and help businesses that were affected by the flood,” he said.
Bill said this past January was horrific from winter storms.
“When it’s cold, nobody goes out, and we don’t have the farmers’ market, so we don’t have the sales. It was really hard on everybody downtown,” he said.
Bootleg Hill sells online, but most of their sales are in person, including the year-round Davenport Farmers’ Market, 421 W. River Drive. They get customers from other major cities, including Chicago and Des Moines. Bootleg Hill is one of very few meaderies between Chicago and St. Louis.
“Mead is popular all over the world,” Rick said.
Raising money
The money raised from the GoFundMe will go to:
- Catching up on all expenses that immediately threaten the operation
- Paying beekeepers
- All other expenses that are quickly rising, to climb out of debt.
Bootleg Hill hosts a lot of live music and will have two special nights later this month to serve as “Save the Meadery” fundraisers. Donovan Gustofson will play on Tuesday, March 26, Rob Dahms will perform Wednesday, March 27, and Running Man on Friday, March 29.
In addition to its variety of beverages, Bootleg Hill has a small number of eats, including a garlic cheese spread and crackers, cheese curds, and thin crust pizza.
It’s open Tuesdays 3-9 p.m., Wednesdays noon-9 p.m., Thursdays noon-10 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays noon to midnight, and Sundays noon to 9 p.m. Bootleg Hill will have an Open Mic Night hosted by Antone Burton this Thursday, March 7, 8-11 p.m.
For more information, click HERE.
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