Servaes Brewing donates over $100,000 to Atchison County groups

Servaes Brewing Co. says its Riverfront program has now donated more than $100,000 to community groups and nonprofits in Atchison County and the Kansas City metro area, turning the small brewery in downtown Atchison into a steady fundraising engine for local causes. The money has come through recurring benefit nights, especially Music Bingo for a Cause events that direct suggested $5 donations per bingo card to partner organizations.

That giving comes out of a site with deep local roots. Servaes opened its Atchison Riverfront location in June 2024 at 118 S. Second St., inside a circa-1887 Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad freight depot that the company says was later used as a beer distribution center and was remodeled by the Berger family. The building, which played a role in Atchison’s growth as a railroad hub, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The brewery says the Atchison project did not appear overnight. Community surveys in 2018 and 2021 showed local interest in a brewery, and a November 2020 ballot question in Atchison County removed a 30% minimum food-sales requirement that had made it difficult for a small, non-restaurant brewery to open. Servaes says those changes helped clear the way for the Riverfront taproom in Courtney Servaes’ hometown.

The fundraising has stayed tied to the calendar and to local programming. Servaes began adding Thursday hours in Atchison on Sept. 12, 2024, alongside Music Bingo for a Cause events, and the Riverfront space has also hosted community gatherings tied to America 250 celebrations and Amelia Earhart Festival programming. A Visit Atchison listing shows one music bingo event benefiting the Atchison County Food Pantry, underscoring how the brewery’s donations have been built through a repeating model rather than a one-time campaign.

The $100,000 figure also points to the Riverfront location’s broader role in Atchison. Between the donations, the benefit nights and the steady calendar of public events, the depot at 118 S. Second St. has become more than a taproom. It has become a place where neighborhood groups can raise money, bring people in the door and turn weekly traffic into a local funding stream.