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The haddock at Brewery Bay Food Co arrives in a batter made with Couchiching's Sunshine City blonde ale, and that one detail explains more about the restaurant than its sign does. Brewery Bay is a downtown Orillia pub that picked up its identity in late 2024 and moved roughly a hundred metres into Couchiching Craft Brewing Co.'s taproom at 162 Mississaga Street East. The Fish & Chips order — haddock in the ale batter, fries, slaw, tartar and lemon — is now the cleanest illustration of why the move made sense. The kitchen still cooks pub comfort, and the brewery now shares the address. A dozen Couchiching taps stand beside the menu rather than behind it.
The current card is broad pub comfort with a few clear house anchors. The Smash Mac Burger stacks a smashed AAA beef chuck patty with house pickles, Chef's mac sauce, orange cheddar, shredded iceberg and a brioche bun, and it is the order that defines the burger lane. Pitachos and José Nachos handle the shareable start. Pork Barbacoa Tacos, the Whipped Feta Cheese Bowl, Smoky Bacon Grilled Cheese and a Portobello Ranch Wrap give the menu reach without losing the pub frame. Vegetarian and vegan swaps run through almost every section — Vegan Chicken Tacos and a Sweet 'n' Spicy Veggie Burger sit on the same page as the Kitchen Sink Burger and Jumbo Chicken Wings. The Sunshine Cookie Skillet is the dessert nobody hands off: a warm chocolate-chip cookie under vanilla ice cream and house chocolate sauce, finished in the cast iron it baked in.
The merger is what gives Brewery Bay its current shape. Late in 2024 the kitchen relocated into the Couchiching taproom, and local reporting framed the move as a natural fit rather than a rescue — same staff, same regulars, same downtown Orillia footprint, with the brewery's twelve taps now part of the dining setting instead of a separate destination across the street. The historic brick and wood of the building have been kept. The Mug Club, which has run since 1993, slid forward intact. The Sunshine City ale-battered Fish & Chips is on the menu it has been on for years, and the Sunshine City pint to go with it is the new piece. The arrangement reads less like a takeover and more like two downtown operations agreeing to share one address.
Steve Clarke opened the original Brewery Bay in 1993, and local reporting on the merger has carried his name throughout. Stewardship has since passed to his daughter Jenna French, who already runs Rustica Pizza Vino in Orillia and now serves as managing partner of the merged company. The biography is hands-on and local — a daughter who built her own Orillia restaurant taking over the one her father built more than thirty years ago, with veteran staff still recognisable to regulars who started coming in the mid-nineties.
What Brewery Bay does well now is what it did before the move: it gives downtown Orillia a place that holds up to repeat visits without one occasion driving them. The upstairs program at Higher Ground books trivia, sing-alongs, drag shows, yoga, and a summer live-music showcase that pulls onto the patio when the weather opens up. The streetside patio handles its own lunches and post-work crowds. The Mug Club still rewards the regulars who treat Brewery Bay as a calendar. Couchiching's taps now sit a few metres from the kitchen, and the menu has been reshaped just enough to make the brewery feel like a partner rather than a co-tenant. Order Fish & Chips with a Sunshine City pint, save room for the cookie skillet, and the merger explains itself.
Brewery Bay has more than three decades of local memory behind it, and the current version keeps that history visible rather than replacing it with a generic taproom concept.
The move into Couchiching Craft Brewing gives the restaurant a beer program that is part of the room, not an add-on, with the menu shaped around pub food that belongs beside local taps.
Burgers, wings, tacos, Fish & Chips, salads, wraps, vegetarian swaps, and shareables make the menu easy to use for mixed tables without losing the core pub identity.
This is Restaurantica’s own read — synthesized from publicly available sources across diner signal and editorial research, last updated June 2026. It’s our interpretation of the evidence, not a crowd average — and placement is never for sale.
Brewery Bay now sits inside Couchiching's taproom, so the beer program is part of the room rather than an add-on. The food works in that lane too, from ale-battered Fish & Chips to burger-and-wings orders that make sense beside local taps.
The menu is built around pub comfort with enough house detail to keep it from feeling generic. Fish & Chips, Smash Mac Burger, Pitachos, nachos, tacos, and the Sunshine Cookie Skillet give the kitchen multiple anchors for a relaxed meal.
The calendar gives Brewery Bay a reason to check the date before choosing a night. Trivia, live music, drag shows, sing-alongs, and community nights make the upstairs and patio activity part of the visit.
This is a better fit for a social night than a quiet, formal dinner. The room has taps, shareable food, events, and enough history with local regulars to feel lived-in when the night gets going.
Groups have easy menu math here: nachos and Pitachos are shareable, tacos come in threes, and wings, burgers, and wraps cover different appetites. Higher Ground and the events calendar add another reason to gather around a date.
Restaurantica’s write-up above is synthesized from broad public signal — community reviews add the first-person layer. Share the nuances of your visit to Brewery Bay Food Co in Orillia: the standout dishes, the room, the service.
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