The Patron Saint of Downtown Music: Meet Brett Andress

By Edward Craig

The next time you step into the Ale and Witch, the funky little downtown craft beer joint owned by local resident Brett Andress, have a look behind the bar. Up high, crowded in on all sides by brewery promotions, beer descriptions, and pithy slogans (“GOOD BEER AIN’T CHEAP, CHEAP BEER AIN’T GOOD”), you will see a chalkboard with some staggering numbers. This is where Brett logs by calendar year the number of live music shows he has staged both inside and out of “The Witch” (as bon vivant and concert regular Tracy Kennard of this magazine’s staff dubs the place). Some of the numbers defy belief— in 2012 there were 436 shows, in 2013 a slight dip to 435—while another number brings back dark memories of a difficult time—2020’s Year of the Pandemic, a mere 115 shows, by far the low water mark in the venue’s history. Altogether, we are talking about over 3,400 shows since Andress launched his uncertain venture in 2011. That’s a lot of craft beer served. But far more important, that’s a lot of people drawn to downtown St. Pete—to shop, see a movie, eat a nice meal, visit a museum—and lest we forget, it’s a lot of musicians getting paid. How did we come to enjoy this unheralded amenity of downtown living? Our tale begins with a broken-down moving truck on the side of I-275 and a young entrepreneur’s per- sistent dream.

Brett Andress was born 50-some years ago in Pennsylvania and grew up mostly in New Jersey, attending Rutgers University before zigzagging around various easterly locations, seeking his fortune. The saloon business wasn’t exactly in his blood—his father was an equine pharmaceutical merchant—but after years of working in the restaurant and bar industry it became his calling. So, after some preliminary scouting, in 2001 he moved from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to St. Petersburg, confident that his varied experience would land him a job here. He had a Sears credit card and a few bucks to rub together, enough to rent a moving van and head south to The Sunshine City. As fate would have it, he made it all the way to the I-275/I-4 interchange before his truck broke down. He got a tow to his new digs, unpacked, and settled in, his only friend at the time his loyal border collie, Monet.

At first, Andress worked a string of jobs in the iconic downtown restaurants and bars of yesteryear, most notably at Redwoods on Central Avenue, where he saw a live music scene begin to take shape in places like The Garden, also on Central, which then featured regular live jazz. Looking around, he envisioned how downtown St. Pete might become an arts and entertainment mecca back when few other people could. According to Andress, the evolution of live music downtown shifted from those modest gigs at the Garden and a few other random, scattered venues (e.g. State Theater, the first Ringside), to a scene clustered around the Baywalk area (now Sundial), then to Beach Drive, and finally back to Central Avenue.

Now of course the entire greater downtown area is lit up, and there are new hotbeds gaining traction all the time. But that was far from clear back in the early 2000s. Yet Andress knew where he wanted to be. “I would get off work downtown and start walking, crisscrossing the area between 4th Street and Beach Drive, 5th Avenue North and 5th Avenue South, looking for the right space.” Then one day, in August of 2010, he found it, The Courtyard Shops at Plaza Tower, right in the middle of it all. He owned a modest home on the south side and didn’t have a lot of money, but somehow, he convinced the building owner to approve his business plan for a craft beer tavern. Using his imagination, he noticed there was a large common area out front which just might be perfect for hosting live music. This is how his Ale and Witch odyssey began.

The challenges were many. Craft beer was still a novelty in 2010. There were very few local breweries back then whose products he could feature. And the whole down- town area--at least compared to today--was still on shaky legs as an entertainment destination. He needed to make a splash and get people’s attention somehow, so he made a pivotal early decision that his promotional budget would be devoted entirely to paying for live music performances. That’s still true today, to the great benefit of live music lovers throughout the Bay Area, but particularly for downtown dwellers, many of whom figured out they could walk or ride a bicycle to his always free, consistently high-quality shows.

So, on January 26, 2011 the Ale and Witch first opened for business, staffed by veteran bar employees Andress knew from local establishments where he’d worked (some of them still work for him today). Three days later, on January 29th, it featured its first live concert, held inside the bar, a Bulgarian chanteuse named Geri X. The official grand opening was the following week, on February 3rd, when a jazz ensemble named The Shiny Shoes Band kicked things off. It wasn’t until a month later that the musicians migrated outdoors, with local stalwart Kirk Adams finally breaking in the outdoor plaza. These early experiments were well-received, if only modestly so. Then came a game-changing date. In April of that year the popular Tampa Bay Blues Fest was scheduled to take place in nearby Vinoy Park. So Andress booked a local favorite, blues guitarist extraordinaire Damon Fowler, to christen the festival with a night-before event April 7th at the Witch. The show blew up big time, everyone came, the place was packed wall-to-wall, there was barely room to breathe, the bar rang up huge sales, and Andress had his “Aha!” moment--this would be the path his business took to commercial success.

When you love a Witch! And some Ale.

In the early days, the novelty of the live music craft beer bar concept and scarcity of similar entertainment options made for many more big crowds, which Andress did his best to accommodate with as many as ten live shows a week. Meanwhile, the neighborhood around him struggled to adapt. There were noise ordinance complaints, citations given to bands loading and unloading equipment in the alley, and other challenges, all of which The Witch would eventually overcome. The place was a hit. This early smashing success lasted for several years, until an onslaught of competition (and an unsuccessful restaurant venture by Andress upstairs) forced him to scale things back somewhat. These days he knows exactly what kind of crowds he can draw in any given season, on any given night, with any given band or genre of music. He knows when bad weather isn’t worth fighting against. But the numbers don’t lie. The man still puts on a lot of shows. It’s obviously what he loves to do. He has done well, but Andress doesn’t drive a Ferrari. He still lives in that same modest house on the South Side, and he still shows up to work every day. Regulars are accustomed to seeing his tall, slim figure moving around like a shadow, his trademark ballcap on his head, ever vigilant, bussing empty beer glasses and pushing in chairs, a polite smile at the ready. It’s what the man does. He hires good bands for a craft beer party four days a week. And we’re lucky to have him.

The musicians who have performed at the Witch since that fateful grand opening in 2011 include Grammy winners, Superbowl halftime performers, and other award-winning artists. To his everlasting credit, Andress has also featured a wide variety of charitable promotions over the years, including celebrity bartenders like former mayors Rick Baker and Rick Kriseman pouring drafts and raising money for good causes, a chili cookoff headlined by S.P.P.D. and S.P.F.D., his “Every Quarter Counts” campaign to donate twenty-five cents from every sale to local charities, to mention just a few. And local fine artists are grateful that the walls of his establishment have long featured their work for sale commission-free.

There is a quote from writer Kurt Vonnegut which has resurfaced recently in online memes. “You meet saints everywhere. They are people acting decently in an indecent society.” This is an apt way to look at the generosity of Brett Andress. He has delighted us all dozens if not hundreds of times with his free shows, while also managing to sell a lot of beer in the process. He’s certainly no saint in the literal sense, and he has farther to go before earning his own statue. But if he stopped tomorrow, he just might deserve a commemorative plaque at the corner of 2nd Ave North and 1st Street— “Here Brett Andress brought great aesthetic pleasure, revelry, friendship, a sense of community, and many musician paychecks to downtown St. Pete.” He has certainly earned our strong patronage. So come have a listen. Bring your well-behaved children, your well-behaved dog. And when you see Brett, tell him thanks, and spring for a round of frosty libations for you and your friends. It’s how we roll in downtown St. Pete.