Meet the new bosses, not the same as the old bosses, but not too different, either.

At least that is the sense I picked up on when I met up with the new owners of Marble Brewery, Jarrett Babincsak and Bert Boyce, to talk about where we were in the transition last Friday.

The duo comes from Santa Fe Brewing, where Babincsak was the vice president of sales and marketing, while Boyce was the brewmaster. Their partnership was not one that came out of the blue the day they heard that Marble was up for sale.

“I’ve always wanted to do my own thing and be my own boss,” Boyce said. “We have wanted to work together to run something together for some time. Some other things didn’t pan out. Those shall remain unnamed. But then, we heard through the grapevine because of the one-degree separation in this town and state, that Marble was maybe looking to transition. We pretty quickly made a couple phone calls, found a couple people who believed in us, and here we are.”

If that sounds a bit simple, Boyce assured me that it was not.

“The long version is we’ve been in this state for eight and 10 years now,” he said. “We know a lot of people. Our record is what it is. We’ve been planting seeds for wanting to do something. When it came time, the connections were already made. It wasn’t a specific Marble brewery business plan that existed, because that was new. But, we had enough interested parties that when we made the call, they said yeah, let’s do that.”

Getting their investors together and presenting an offer to buy Marble was just step one. To keep things running during the switch from current owner Soren Peters and his family to the Boyce/Babincsak group was not as simple as handing over the keys.

“It’s been understandably complicated, but surprisingly smooth, if that makes any sense,” Babincsak said. “Yeah, there are a lot of I’s to dot and T’s to cross, and contracts to address, making sure that we have everything functionally, legally where it needs to be for the transition. And then, because we’re in this management period that needs to work, and then transitioning into closing the sale.”

The way the transition will work is that the current owners will remain in charge overall until the new small brewer licenses are approved by Alcohol Beverage Control in Santa Fe. Only then will the final handover occur.

“Honestly, it could be another 90 to 120 days from now before the applications are approved,” Boyce said. “It will be some time in April, let’s say mid-April when our New Mexico small brewer license is granted. And, that’s when the deal closes, officially closes. Our understanding is this is purely procedural. None of us have (bad) records. We’re going to get the license. It’s just a matter of we cannot speed it up. You have to post for 30 days. You have to have a public hearing. It is what it is.”

It helps that Boyce and Babincsak are patient. It also helps that they have done their homework, so to speak.

“Like Bert said, all the work and the due diligence that we had done in the years preceding, the reputations and relationships that we have built set us up for success,” Babincsak said. “We had people that are experts in organizing deals like this, and just finding the right capital partners who want to be invested for the long term, who live here in New Mexico, who want to see really cool stuff being done in New Mexico by New Mexicans. Having relationships with distributors who believe in us and wanted to see this succeed, and want to be a part of this in Admiral Beverage.

“There was a lot of that groundwork that was already laid that I think cleared the way for this to go as smoothly as it did. But yeah, there’s a lot of stuff that’s unexpected or otherwise that you get into where you go there’s a lot here.”

That was the other big change since the sale was announced and the duo had their first set of media interviews — Marble is changing distributors from National to Admiral Beverage. Babincsak said the former was looking to get out of the beer game long before Marble went up for sale. Based on their prior relationship with Admiral while with SFBC, it was an easy decision to switch things up. And yes, this does mean that your favorite Marble beers will finally be out at Isotopes Park for baseball and soccer games this year, plus Boyce said they will be back at Isleta Amphitheater for the summer concert series.

Everything would not be possible without the cooperation of the current owners in terms of working on an extended timeline to make the sale happen without disrupting day-to-day operations at all three Marble locations.

“I want to give Soren and the Peters (family) credit for being willing to work with us every step of the way,” Boyce said. “Soren was ready (to sell), so he’s been a great partner for this.”

“You could tell that from the beginning that he wanted operators who were going to steward the brand and see this thing forward,” Babincsak added. “That could bring the skillsets and the energy that were going to be needed to take the brand where it needs to go. That was really critical and important to him. Like Bert said, he’s been very gracious, engaged with us, and wanting to see a successful transition.”

To make the deal happen, Boyce and Babincsak had to reach out to other investors to cover the up-front costs of making such a hefty purchase. The price was not disclosed, but one has to figure the entire Marble operation cost well into the millions.

“Since you’re going to ask, our investment team is very small,” Boyce said. “Everyone is a New Mexico resident, and they invest in New Mexico businesses, mostly food and (beverage). Our team is invested in what Marble can be. They’re silent partners, Jarrett and I are running it. But, we feel confident as operators that the people backing us are invested in New Mexico food and beverage, and they believe in it as much as we do.”

“And, they’re invested in this for the long term,” Babincsak added. “They’re in this with us as long as we’re running it. That also gives us the piece of mind that we can do this correctly.”

Right now, the main focus for Boyce and Babincsak has been to get to know the current Marble staff, while also studying the data to see what is working and what areas of the business need change.

“I think we’re both very thoughtful and intentional in the way that we go about things,” Babincsak said. “We want to gather a lot of information and understand the data. In this case a lot of the data is just getting feedback from our staff. … As of this afternoon, I’ll have met with every member of our taproom staff. It’s just a lot of conversations and dialogue. We know what we’ve done, but we don’t fully understand all of the intricacies of what Marble is, the people, what resources and support can we provide that are going to make this the place that they want to work. Which then, in turn, is going to come across in the service we’re able to provide.”

Boyce said that whether it is on day one or day 120, their approach is the same. There are still some things, for the time being, that they have to run by Peters, but for the most part they are now fully in charge of day-to-day management.

“Operationally, it would have been the exact same approach, whether we were just managing it or we had closed on day one,” Babincsak added.

Or, as Boyce put it best: “If we fail in this management period, or when we’re closed (on the deal), we’re fucked either way, it’s not an option.”

Narrowing down the focus to the beer, Boyce and Babincsak have been pouring over the data about what sells and what does not, while also listening to their employees, who in turn hear from Marble’s most loyal customers.

So, yeah, Red Ale and Triple Berry are coming back as year-round beers, Boyce said. Pilsner will be back on as a regular, too, and Whiteout should make a comeback as a seasonal, Babincsak added.

“We don’t want to go retro, we’re not going to bring Marble 2016 back,” Boyce said. “But, there are also some brands that weren’t doing well, and that they put a lot of effort behind. We use data to tell us if people want to buy this or not. There’s only so much anecdotal evidence from people across the bar. The real metric whether people want something is if they’re buying it or not. So, there are a couple brands that we know already that we’re going to have to replace with Red, and Pils, and Triple Berry to bring them back. We automatically know this.”

Babinscak said every social media post sees Marble customers crying out for the return of their missing favorites (Red did return briefly as a limited release recently).

“Those are the obvious ones,” Boyce said. “Long-term, we’ll develop the portfolio kind of the way we always have, which is these days you have to be thinking a year-and-a-half in advance. We’re not so worried about what we’re going to make this summer, we have to be thinking about what the big thing is for spring 2026. Assuming we can get our heads around that, we have a lot of work to do.

“When we were with Santa Fe, we were thinking so much statewide and big picture, but now we’re just really focused on Albuquerque. What do Burqueños want? How do we become hyper-relevant? I don’t want to say how do we become cool again, but we have to bring the energy back. Everything is on the table right now, I guess.”

Babincsak said that goes for every aspect of the business, not just the beer that forms the core of what Marble is to most people.

“That’s across the board,” he said. “We keep coming back to this idea that we want to deliver the best product and hospitality experience in Albuquerque. And, just raise the bar, and that’s going to require new energy and an evolution in our approach. That goes on the beer side, the hospitality, the decor, aesthetic of our brand, merch, across the board everything now has to be seen through that lens of developing and delivering that best-in-class product and hospitality experience. Marble was on the forefront of that for a long time. It was the coolest brand in Albuquerque. It was part and parcel of what was cool in Albuquerque. It was where all the cool people went.

“We would sit there in Santa Fe and go, ‘I want to be cool, too. We’re cool, man. Why are you guys turning your nose up at us? We’re cool!’ Now, it’s like we remember that, and the heartbeat of that is still here, the beers, a lot of really talented people are still here. They really haven’t felt supported or empowered. We’ll know which way we need to go with the portfolio, which way we need to go with the service. We’ll know the direction that feels right.”

Yeah, Babincsak got a little animated, in a particularly light-hearted way, when he did that “cool” bit there. I did not look up to see if it caught anyone else in the downtown taproom off guard. As silly as it was, he had a point. Times have changed and Marble has felt a little stuck for a while now. One thing that figures to change is the event calendar, though Babincsak said some of the major crowd favorite events — think Marblefest — are not going anywhere.

“It will be both, we have some staple events that are amazing, we’ll continue to do those,” Babincsak said. “But, we want to evolve our approach with the events we’re doing at each of our taprooms, the big events that we throw down here, maybe looking to bring back the block party type of environment. We’re looking for things for our regulars, that audience, and some of the other audiences in Albuquerque. Younger generations are drinking less, but they still want to go out, they still want a cool space where they can build community and feel like they’re part of something. What are we doing every day of the week and why? I feel like that’s part of being intentional. And then, feeling like it’s grounded and makes sense for our brand.”

“Our core business is we’re a brewery, but especially this space is so much more than that,” Boyce added. “We need to do everything well, while asking ourselves what our community wants us to do. The best thing to do is listen.”

The final big piece of this transitional period will be for the new owners and the existing employees to get to know each other, and see if they wish to continue working together in this new Marble era.

“I think this relationship with many of them is an exchange, and I think that everybody in that exchange should get equal value,” Babincsak said. “As much as we’re seeing what’s happening and evaluating things, this is also an opportunity for them to get to know us and evaluate us and see if it’s a good fit, if this vision makes sense to them. We’re beginning to develop that rapport.”

“We both have very long-developed, specific ways that we do things,” Boyce added. “Most of them work and we stand behind them. Now we’ll see if that sounds good to (the employees), as well.”

We can only hope that it all works out for everyone, one way or the other. All that I can personally say is that I have known Boyce for a long time now, and I can attest to his love for craft beer and his desire to make things work the right way. He has a solid partner that he believes in in Babincsak, and together they are just about the best possible pairing Marble fans could have hoped for to take over the brewery.

For now, everyone can just sit back and enjoy the beer, wait for the events to start up again in March, and wait to see what changes big and small come down the pipeline. For the first time in a while, the future looks bright at 111 Marble Avenue.

A big, big thanks to Bert and Jarrett for taking time out of their incredibly busy schedules to chat before I had to hustle up to WinterBrew. I will certainly keep in touch with both of them should anything further need to be chronicled between now and the sale formally closing in April.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister