You’re probably familiar with the Ainsley House, the Tudor Revival home that once belonged to canning pioneer J.C. Ainsley and his family and is now a museum and event space in downtown Campbell.
By this time next year, though, there’ll be another “Ainsley House” on nearby Harrison Avenue, where ground was broken for Ainsley’s Spout House, a family-friendly tavern and beer garden named after a country inn the Ainsley family operated in England’s Yorkshire Moors in the 19th century.
Proprietor Alan Hicks, who is the great grandson of J.C. Ainsley, hired architect Sal Caruso to transform the Ainsley Corporation’s offices behind Blue Line Pizza into a gathering spot that is expected to open in time for Campbell’s Oktoberfest celebration in 2025. The offerings will include draft beers from the Central Coast and the Bay Area, Santa Cruz mountain wines and a permanent food truck run by Israel Valencia and Tonya Tyszkiewicz of Table and Terrace catering.
But there will be a generous side of history for anyone who comes through the door.
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Hicks said the family’s original collection of canning labels and other memorabilia from the era of the Valley of the Heart’s Delight will be on display at the Spout House, which will be a kind of “living museum,” with a portion of the proceeds supporting the Ainsley House and Campbell Museums.
The Ainsley Corp. offices at 43 Harrison Ave. in Campbell will be transformed into Ainsley’s Spout House, a family-friendly tavern and beer garden expected to open in Oct. 2025. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
“Part of what makes it so unique is we have the connection to the Ainsley House and that history,” Hicks said. “There’s going to be a lot of history connecting the early canning days to the Silicon Valley of today.”
The outdoor beer garden is also going to feature the original playhouse that was a scaled-down replica of another historic Ainsley home — this one belonging to Dorothy Ainsley Lloyd and William Lloyd. That house, known as the Greylands, still stands on the eBay campus on Hamilton and Bascom avenues where, for at least some time, it served as an employee pub.
Kerry Perkins, museum supervisor for the city of Campbell, said the Ainsley family has a clear legacy in the city with the Ainsley cannery occupying part of Harrison Avenue that went right up to where Blue Line Pizza is on Campbell Avenue today. And with the Spout House going back generations in the Ainsley family, she said, there’s a true continuation of legacy in the project.
“From a historical perspective, I can’t think of a better place to come, enjoy a little history and maybe have a good beer and some good food,” she said.
Ainsley’s Spout House is expected to open in October 2025.