Santa Rosa’s Juncture Taproom & Lounge is closing, owner hopes to find buyer to take over business

Beloved Juncture Taproom & Lounge in east Santa Rosa is looking for a new buyer as current owner Peter Lopez Jr. prepares to sell due to financial constraints.

"We’re hanging by a thread,“ Lopez said. ”A large part of my business became survival and when (the load) gets heavy, it makes it difficult to navigate into the future.“

Lopez said there have been many factors leading up to his decision, including the impact that power outages, wildfires and the pandemic has had on business.

He said the debt he’s acquired over the last few years has been like trying to carry a heavy backpack up a steep mountain.

“I wanted to see the other side of the pandemic and the 2023 numbers are very close to pre-pandemic numbers,” Lopez said. “But the backpack has just become so much heavier.”

Lopez doesn’t have a set closing day for Juncture and hopes he can find either a buyer or new owner to keep the space alive. He wants to keep Juncture open during the sale process so prospective buyers can see the space’s potential.

But no matter what, Lopez didn’t want to be the business owner that shuts his door without telling the community why.

“It just felt like every time we were trying to get ahead, something big would happen that would set us back,” he said.

Lopez started Juncture, formerly known as Confluence Taproom, back in 2017 in a building on Montgomery Drive that sat vacant for almost a decade.

The love of Lopez’s family was spread throughout the taproom with Lopez’s nephew employed as assistant manager and his niece manning the bar.

Lopez’s sisters helped with his investments, his daughter worked in the kitchen, and Lopez’s mother would come to make tostadas on Tuesdays and ceviche on Sundays.

“I always say workers who weren’t my blood-relative family relative was my adopted family,” he said.

A number of people have shown interest in buying Juncture.

When Lopez finds the right person, he plans on restarting his passion project, a Juncture podcast, where he interviews special guests such as Sheriff Eddie Ingram, former Raiders linebacker Jerry Robinson, and even the Golden State Warriors team doctor, Dr. Robert Nied.

He also plans to continue with his partnership just up the street at Santa Rosa Pizzeria which he opened down the street from the taproom with a business partner earlier this year to help supplement Juncture’s menu.

Lopez doesn’t have a finalized closing date, but hopes to find an interested buyer in the meantime.

“I feel so blessed,” he said. “I had so many people that just saw the value in what I was trying to do and it made me feel like we were always going to figure it out.”

You can reach Staff Writer Sara Edwards at 707-521-5487 or sara.edwards@pressdemocrat. com. On Twitter @sedwards380.