"We did a soft open, and the response really has been incredible," Mangata manager Amanda Raba told Harbor Country News after the brewery's first weekend in early October. The building she was talking about had sat empty for years on Red Arrow Highway, one more dark storefront in a stretch of Union Pier that residents drove past without much thought. Now it pours nine beers on tap, seats people on a patio that takes outside food, and shares an owner with a brewery that just marked ten years in business four miles south in Bridgman.
That single fact, an abandoned building turned working brewery, is a small data point. But it sits on top of a bigger one that changes how a night out in Union Pier actually works: the paved path that used to run three quiet miles from Whistle Stop Grocery is no longer a local curiosity. It is now one piece of the Harbor Country Hike & Bike Trail, a 36-mile connected network that links New Buffalo, Three Oaks, Sawyer, Grand Beach, Harbert, Union Pier and Michiana. Put those two facts together and something concrete shifts. For the first time, a resident can string together a full evening in Union Pier, bakery in the morning, wine flight in the afternoon, dinner and a beer at night, without needing to move a car.
What Used to Sit There
Chris Betts owns Mangata Beer Co. and also owns Transient Artisan Ales in Bridgman, the brewery that just celebrated its tenth anniversary with events in April. According to Raba, the Union Pier location gave Betts room to brew differently than he does at Transient, leaning into lighter, more traditional styles: Belgian ales, pilsners, English styles. The taplist on a Sunday in February included Moonshadow, a dark lager, alongside Rhythmic, a pilsner, and Till, a saison.
None of that would matter much if the building itself weren't part of the story. Raba said it had sat vacant for years before Betts and his father took it apart and rebuilt it, down to countertops made from recycled glass and resin, built by a local craftsman. Mangata Beer Co. does not serve food, but it welcomes outside food, and Raba said a lot of customers grab something first from Red Arrow Roadhouse or Union Pier Social before settling in. Food trucks and pop-ups were expected to show up more regularly once spring and summer hours expanded. Current posted hours run Wednesday and Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 9 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 8 p.m.
A brewery opening in a previously dead storefront is a good story on its own. What makes it matter for the rest of Union Pier is where that storefront sits: directly on the corridor that the hike and bike trail now runs through.
The Three Miles That Became Thirty-Six
For years, the Harbor Country Chamber of Commerce described Union Pier's bike path in modest terms: a ten-foot-wide paved pathway starting at Whistle Stop Grocery and running three miles, with a note that it would "soon" extend into New Buffalo Township. That three-mile stretch is still there. What changed is what it connects to. The Harbor Country Hike & Bike Trail project describes its goal as letting bicyclists and hikers move between New Buffalo, Three Oaks, Sawyer, Grand Beach, Harbert, Union Pier, Michiana and the towns in between using a single connected system, 36 miles in total.
That is a different kind of infrastructure than a nice path behind a grocery store. It means the same stretch of pavement that used to dead-end somewhere north of town now functions as a spine, and Union Pier sits close to the middle of it rather than at one edge. The practical effect shows up in how far a bike ride actually goes: what used to be an out-and-back to nowhere in particular is now a route that can reach Harbert or Three Oaks without a car ever leaving the driveway.
The Loop That Didn't Exist a Year Ago
Line up what is now within walking or biking distance of that stretch of Red Arrow Highway, and the shape of a full day starts to look different than it did even two years ago.
- Morning: Black Currant Bakehouse, open since 2017, a scratch-made vegetarian bakery known for selling out of donuts most mornings. Reviewers describe arriving late and finding the case empty, which is less a complaint than a scheduling note for anyone planning to stop by.
- Midday: Whistle Stop Grocery, open at 7 a.m. daily year-round, a combined coffee bar, deli, bakery and specialty market with a curated wine and beer selection, the same building the paved trail originates from.
- Afternoon: a wine flight at the Union Pier tasting rooms along the Lake Michigan Shore Wine Trail. St. Julian's Union Pier location pours flights and cider on a patio, and Round Barn's Union Pier tasting room, tucked near I-94's Exit 6, gets consistently better reviews for its calmer atmosphere than its sister location further down the trail.
- Evening: Mangata Beer Co. for a pilsner or saison, with outside food carried over from Red Arrow Roadhouse or Union Pier Social, both a short walk down the same corridor.
None of these businesses are new individually, except Mangata. What is new is that they now read as a single loop rather than a list of separate errands, because the trail physically threads them together and removes the need to reposition a car between stops.
The New Houses Going in Along the Same Path
The trail's growing relevance is not lost on developers either. In March 2025, the New Buffalo Township Board approved Planned Unit Development status for Driftwood Union Pier, a 15-home project on 13 wooded acres off Community Hall Road. The developer's own materials lean heavily on proximity to what they call the area's biking and walking trail, along with nearby dining and beach access, as the project's core selling point.
That detail is worth noting for what it confirms rather than what it promises. A 15-lot development choosing to market itself around trail access is a signal that the trail has become a fixed reference point for how people evaluate distance and convenience in Union Pier, not a seasonal amenity. Whatever else Driftwood becomes, its site plan is one more data point that the corridor running past Whistle Stop Grocery and Mangata Beer Co. is now treated as infrastructure, not a bonus.
What This Adds Up To
Union Pier's identity has always been built on two things: the beach and the wine trail. Neither of those changed this year. What changed is quieter and easier to miss: a building that had been dark for years came back online as a working brewery, and the modest path behind the grocery store turned out to be one segment of a much larger connected system. Together, those two facts mean a resident can now do something that wasn't really possible eighteen months ago, moving from bakery to tasting room to brewery to dinner on foot or by bike, inside the boundaries of one small unincorporated community, on a trail that also happens to keep going another 33 miles if they want it to.
If you want to talk about what's opening, what used to be there, or what's going up next along Union Pier's stretch of the trail, Shoreline Advice keeps a running eye on it.
