About Us.

While rooted in Coopersville, One Eyed Pete’s story actually starts in Chicago. In 2006, One Eyed Pete’s owner and co-founder Jeremy Grossenbacher had just graduated from Baker College in Muskegon and was looking to expand his horizons beyond the small community of Coopersville where he was born, raised and spent the only 22 years of his life up to that point. Upon moving to Chicago, a passion for food was almost immediately discovered for Jeremy. For the next 10 years Jeremy and his now wife Sara, ate and drank their way through Chicago and any city they traveled to. While Jeremy never pursued the food or hospitality as a career, it was during this time that Jeremy also developed his love of cooking, specifically BBQ, as well as a big interest in local food sourcing. It was also during this time that Jeremy lived with Sean Sorensen, a Chicago native, for 6 years. Sean has a 20+ year career in food and hospitality focused on front of house management. During their time living together they had plenty of late night discussions about how cool it would be to “do something together.” That never materialized and in 2016 Jeremy moved back to West Michigan to work for his families RV dealership, and One Eyed Pete’s neighbor, Fun-N-Sun RV. Jeremy worked for the family business for 2 and ½ years, until in 2018, when the building next to Fun-N-Sun RV (and owned by Fun-N-Sun) became vacant when the current tenant decided not to renew their lease. It was at this time that Jeremy decided to turn his passions into a business venture and he convinced his Dad, Dennis Grossenbacher, and cousin Greg Grossenbacher to convert the 10,000 square foot now vacant building into a brewery (Coopersville Brewing Company) and restaurant.

Due to the way fund raising and licensing came together, the kitchen side of the brewery needed to be established as it’s own separate business… enter One Eyed Pete’s. In the fall of 2019, Sean reached out to Jeremy to congratulate him on the business he was building and said “man, we always talked about doing something together, and now you’re doing it,” to which Jeremy replied, “I’m going to need someone that actually knows how to be a GM and run the front of house.” It didn’t take them too long to work out the details to convince Sean to be part of the ownership group and to leave behind the big city, bright lights and comfy corporate restaurant job for the uncertainty of opening a new brewery and restaurant in a small West Michigan community. In October of 2020, Sean made the move from Chicago to West Michigan. Shortly after moving up here Sean and Jeremy discussed the reality that while Jeremy knew food, how to cook and had a number of recipes they knew they wanted to incorporate in the menu, that they were going to need to find a chef that knew how to truly run a kitchen and develop a menu and recipes that can be executed on a large scale, every day. Enter Chef Daniel West and his 20+ years of kitchen and chef experience. Daniel and Sean had worked at a large restaurant and event venue in Chicago for 3 years where Daniel was the head chef and Sean was a senior manager. They remained friends after they went their separate ways, and shortly after Sean arrived in West Michigan, Daniel reached out to Sean to say Happy Birthday and to congratulate him on his new venture. Daniel was in between kitchen jobs at the time and living in Northern Illinois and said to Sean, “let me know if I can help with anything.” It only took one visit and two weeks for Dan to relocate to West Michigan to help complete the brewery buildout and to get One Eyed Pete’s open.