McCall Collective to take over Bru Daddy’s restaurant in Allentown

McCall Collective is moving deeper into the Lehigh Valley by taking over Bru Daddy’s downtown Allentown restaurant at 732 Hamilton Street, a deal that shows how brewery growth is increasingly happening through repurposed spaces instead of fresh builds. The handoff is set to be completed in September 2026, and the restaurant and beer garden will remain open during the transition, giving regulars a more orderly changeover than the abrupt shutdowns that often hit the craft beer scene.

The move is rooted in a long-running relationship between the two breweries. Kaitlin McCall said the first McCall craft beer was a collaboration with Bru Daddy’s, and the company now plans to blend some of its best-known menu items with Bru Daddy’s dishes rather than wipe the slate clean. McCall will keep operating its original Allentown brewery and restaurant at 102 E. Susquehanna Street, where it opened in 2020 with a 7-bbl brewhouse, and it will continue brewing at both locations. McCall later added a second Lehigh Valley taproom site in Breinigsville in 2022, giving the company room to scale without leaving its home base behind.

For Bru Daddy’s, the transfer reflects a shift in business priorities. Rich Ryan said the company’s distribution now reaches 27 Pennsylvania counties, and the brewery has also been manufacturing and packaging beverages for other businesses, putting more weight on production and wholesale than on running a single downtown hospitality site. Bru Daddy’s opened in downtown Allentown in November 2019 across from the PPL Center, began canning beer in November 2020 and expanded distribution further in February 2023 through a partnership with Banko Beverage. WFMZ reported that Aug. 29, 2026 will be the last day of operation for the Hamilton Street location, with a farewell party to be announced.

“We know that this is the right thing to do,” Ryan said, while also calling the change “mixed emotions.” That tension captures the larger story behind the deal: one established Allentown brewery stepping aside so another can keep the taps on, preserve the room, and carry a local beer destination forward instead of letting it vanish. McCall describes itself as a family-operated, female-owned brewery, which adds another layer to a rare, orderly transfer in a market where too many taprooms disappear before anyone gets a chance to retool them.