The Sovengard confirms move to new location

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The Sovengard's lower level and biergarten will remain open through July. File photo from 2018

After six years in its current space, The Sovengard is solidifying plans to move to a new location further west on Bridge Street by this fall.

The Scandinavian-inspired restaurant owned by Rick Muschiana opened in the lower level of 443 Bridge St. NW on Grand Rapids’ West Side in 2016, also establishing an outdoor biergarten in the back of the restaurant at the time.

In 2018, The Sovengard expanded and began occupying the floor above, in addition to the basement level and biergarten.

Last fall, Muschiana announced plans to move the restaurant about a mile west to 1213 Bridge St. NW, where he planned to demolish two buildings and replace them with a single-story restaurant, but he later scrapped that plan.

The Sovengard then identified a building across the street from that site — a former thrift store at 1232 Bridge St. NW — and the restaurant now is finalizing its plans to open a restaurant there with space for events, a biergarten and covered four-seasons porch for outdoor seating.

“It’s been an exciting and bittersweet season of changes over here, and we’d like to officially share the big news that we’re moving,” the restaurant said in a Facebook post on Saturday, June 4. “Although we said goodbye to our beautiful upstairs dining space this week, we will be open for regular hours through the end of July. That’s right — you’ve got two more months to enjoy our current biergarten space and help send us off into the next chapter of Sovengard.

“… We love the space we’ve created the past five years but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with Ben Muller Realty Company on a long-term home in the neighborhood that we love. We’re currently working through final steps with (the Grand Rapids City Planning Commission) and embracing community feedback on the project, with a tentative opening targeted for this September.”

Updates will be posted on Facebook.

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