We recently met with Christian McMahan, former Wachusett Brewing Company president, and now co-founder of Double Down Brewing Company– –to have a few beers and chat about his latest business venture—Double Down on Mountainside, located in an annex building at the Mountainside Bakery & Cafe in Princeton. Double Down Brewing Company is a small craft brewer located in Worcester, founded by Christian (of Westminster) and Tom Oliveri (founder of Wormtown Brewery), assisted by head brewer Brian Wells.
Double Down on Mountainside is a collaboration with the owners of Mountainside Bakery & Café, with the goal of bringing casual outdoor dining to a beautiful location in Central Massachusetts. The Mountainside Bakery & Café is located at 213 Mountain Road in Princeton, just a few miles out of Westminster, and 2 miles from the base of Wachusett Mountain Ski Area. As of this writing, the Mountainside Bakery & Cafe is open Wednesday/Thursday 8am – 3pm (Kitchen open until 2pm), Friday/Saturday 8am – 8pm (Kitchen open until 7:30pm) and Sunday 8am – 6pm (Kitchen open until 5:30pm). Check here for current hours of operation and online ordering menu.
On weekends, when the Double Down Brew Garden is open (current hours are Friday and Saturday noon to 8 PM and Sunday noon to 6pm), you can stop in and enjoy any of several locally brewed Double Down varieties, as well as hard cider from Carlson Orchards in Harvard, Josh Cellars wine, or hard seltzer and non-alcoholic beer. We were there late on a Sunday afternoon, and there was gentle live music playing in the background, a corn hole game going, and a mix of hikers and people like us who arrived in cars. There’s a large patio and picnic tables, with a mix of indoor and outdoor seating. Here’s a story from Mass. Brew Bros. on the collaboration that created Double Down.
The Mountainside Bakery & Cafe is located in what used to be the Wachusett Mountain Superintendent’s House, which is located very close to the trailhead for the Echo Lake Trail, one of the most popular trails on Wachusett Mountain, so this latest development, the opening of the Double Down Brew Garden, seems like a great idea to me.
With the addition of Double Down to the Mountainside Bakery & Cafe, people can now hike up to the lake, or anywhere else for that matter, and upon returning, take a break, have a beer, listen to live music, and sit in the sun at the picnic tables or in the brew building, or order food and drink from Mountainside Bakery & Cafe. The view is tremendous, and you can see how much green there is in the rolling hills around Princeton.
In this era when Americans are deeply divided, and faith in our government is at low ebb, this state initiative, the Historic Curatorship Program, seems to be a great idea which definitely works well: it doesn’t cost taxpayers much, preserves the past, provides jobs and recreation opportunities, and is accomplishing its mission. President Reagan had a famous saying, “The most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” That’s certainly not always the case, and right here in Princeton we have an excellent example of a success, both public and private. Here’s a story about the introduction of the Mountainside Market at the Superintendent’s House partnership.
About ten years ago, when we were driving our two youngest children who were school-choiced to the Thomas Prince School in Princeton, the Superintendent’s House was just an old building. It was all boarded up and falling into disrepair, eventually with the red and white X marker on the exterior, indicating that it’s unsafe for emergency personnel to enter. We often wondered what it was, and why it was being so neglected, since it looked like it had been beautiful at one time.
This building was saved through the Historic Curatorship Program, which is a public/private collaboration, with the goal being a win/win outcome. In this case, it provided an opportunity for two local Princeton residents, Katherine Huck and Robin Springfield, to expand their existing business, the Mountainside Market, into a full service restaurant and bakery located in the old Superintendent’s house. This house was built in 1903 for the first Wachusett Mountain Superintendent and was last lived in in 1969, when the third superintendent retired, so it definitely needed work. This building now is one of the oldest, still usable buildings in the Massachusetts state park system.