RIBCO 2.0 Is Opening Friday Back in Downtown Rock Island
After two long years of being closed, the popular Rock Island Brewing Co., 1815 2nd Ave., is reopening Friday, Dec. 19, under new ownership.
Owner Zach Edwards is a Rocky alum, a fan of RIBCO, a supporter of adaptive re-use of historic buildings, and a cheerleader for downtown Rock Island’s rebound.
The 2001 Rock Island High grad and financial advisor seems the perfect person to lead RIBCO into a new chapter in its long, illustrious history. This fall, Edwards bought the iconic bar/restaurant from Terry Tilka, and its first live music starts (with no cover) Friday at 8 p.m.
New RIBCO owner is Zach Edwards (pictured Oct. 3, 2025), a 2001 Rock Island High alum and independent financial advisor (photo by Jonathan Turner).
“RIBCO is I feel the heart and soul of downtown, the pulse of downtown,” he said this past fall. “I thought getting this can be the first domino that falls here to trigger a larger downtown redevelopment.”
“When I started looking at projects I could do, I was looking all over for ideas and landed on downtown Rock Island because it was a perfect overlapping of so many different interests of mine,” Edwards said. He hopes to redevelop the neighborhood, with so many other vacant buildings in the immediate area.
He plans to be involved in improving downtown over the next two decades. He said former owner Terry Tilka kept his place in good shape, so there’s not much interior renovation that needs to be done. Getting city liquor license approval is a long process, but they hope to reopen by Thanksgiving, ideally in mid-November.
“This is mainly going to be focused on live music and craft beer,” Edwards said, pointing to RIBCO’s rock-solid reputation for both. “We’re gonna have food, but a simple-ingredient bar menu food. It’s going to be high quality. Down the road, if we expand out, downtown would have a mix of not just bars that work. We need to have this work as a neighborhood” with a variety of uses, Edwards said. “All that stuff needs to be present for it to work as a neighborhood.”
RIBCO, at 1815 2nd Ave., Rock Island, is reopening Friday, Dec. 19, and will start with Thursday-Sunday hours, 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. (photo by Jonathan Turner).
He loves the history of RIBCO and wants to preserve it for the future.
“I see this more as a 25-30-year project,” Edwards said. “I’m just carrying the torch for however long I own it. I’m fully committed and invested in looking at this over a long period of time.”
“I really think the downtown is gonna have a lot of momentum here,” he said. “The city has been really good to work with so far, too.”
The building dates from the late 19th century, and the original Rock Island Brewing Co. dates from 1893, when Littig and Co. and two other breweries merged to form Rock Island Brewing Co. The brewery operated until 1920, closing with the advent of Prohibition.
RIBCO has 14 beer taps and Edwards wants to feature QC breweries (and possibly from Iowa City). Before its closing in December 2023, RIBCO served great food and live entertainment since 1979. Edwards isn’t sure how many staff he’ll have, noting Tilka had about 30 employees, including college students.
Rock Island Brewing Company has been closed since December 2023 (photo by Jonathan Turner).
The new owner is an independent financial advisor who works on Utica Ridge Road, Davenport (near Biaggi’s). Edwards graduated from Illinois State University in 2005 (double major in finance and insurance), and has worked for JP Morgan Chase, Waddell & Reed, and LPL Financial.
He was a member of Rock Island Kiwanis Club from 2011 to 2014, and is currently board chair for the Rock Island-Milan Education Foundation, and treasurer for the Rock Island-Milan Booster Club.
Edwards has very fond memories of going to RIBCO, for karaoke night, and to see bands like OK Go and Digital Underground.
“I’ve seen a lot of shows here over the years, and a lot of my friends, we have good memories down here,” he said. He’s very interested in downtown redevelopment, historic preservation, adaptive reuse and walkable cities.
New general manager
The new general manager Kali Bedford, 30, worked the past two years as a bartender at Rock Island’s Sallie’s and Quarter Till.
The AlWood High alum has been in the industry 11 years total, including working in Chicago and Phoenix, and this is her first manager job.
“I came in for the interview and got the job. And it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” Bedford said Wednesday. “Really gave me an opportunity to understand. I love working in the industry, but I love the operations side of things. I was like, I didn’t know there was a way to be in both.”
“They really took a leap of faith,” she said. “It hasn’t come without a few bumps, but the more I learn, I’m like, life is about learning, so you ask the questions, you get the answers.”
New general manager Kali Bedford, pictured in front of many of the bar’s concert posters Dec. 17, 2025 (photo by Jonathan Turner).
Reopening RIBCO is the best of both worlds, since Bedford can open with a new staff, but a popular bar/restaurant with decades of solid reputation.
“It was huge to reopen RIBCO, because especially Zach, the owner, he loves Rock Island,” Bedford said. “He’s from Rock Island. He loves Rock island, you know, and we love the community so much, and it was sad to see it, but a lot of places close.”
“I love the history of the Quad Cities, too. I’m kind of a history buff, so just knowing how rich our history is and people in the community, we just want to do something good and bring back a part of that was missing,” she said of RIBCO.
In addition to live music Fridays and Saturdays, they plan to offer karaoke and stand-up comedy nights.
To start, until early 2026, they will be open 4 p.m., to 2 a.m. Thursdays through Sundays, ages 21 and up to start. RIBCO is working with the city on its liquor license to eliminate its age restriction (that is for bars only).
“We tell people to watch our social media, ‘cause we’ll keep you updated there,” Bedford said. “We’re trying to post every single day, give an update on where we’re at. Our social media manager is amazing. We are hoping like mid-January to start doing maybe a couple days of lunch and those would probably be a Thursday and a Sunday. We’re really trying to focus on getting people in here to watch, local bands they love, even traveling bands they love.”
Having lunch available seven days a week will be a slower rollout, she noted. RIBCO is opening with a staff of 11 in the kitchen and bar, including a new sound system from Rexroat Sound.
New general manager Kali Bedford is a 30-year-old AlWood High alum, who last worked at Rock Island’s Sallie’s and Quarter Till (photo by Jonathan Turner).
Through January, the live music will be free, Bedford said. “Just to ensure that we want people to come in. We want them to see it. We want everyone to get a chance to come in and enjoy it.”
“Zach did such a good job, especially for the music side, culminating this group of people that just know so much about it, and especially with the Quad Cities and he did such an amazing job doing that. So I have to do an amazing job with the rest,” she said.
“It’s really amazing for me to work for someone who cares about what they’re doing so much and cares about the people that work for him,” Bedford said. “It makes you really want to do everything you can and show up, and we have a great group of girls we hired behind the bar.”
RIBCO will feature its trademark wide variety of beers, including QC craft breweries like Green Tree, Five Cities and Bent River.
The RIBCO interior Dec. 17, 2025 (photo by Jonathan Turner).
“Going forward we’re hoping to get Great River in here and eventually be somewhere where everyone can come get something local,” Bedford said. “We have a good mix of local and really just popular names this weekend. And as we move on and we are more open to suggestions. I need to get a little suggestions box on the front because, again, we wanted this to be a place for the community to come and enjoy. And I really would love for everyone’s input on it to give us that guidance of what you’re looking for, because we’re here to service them, not the other way around.”
The menu (with in-house sauces and pulled pork) includes many appetizers and starters (including RIBCO’s staple Mozzarella Egg Rolls), salads, sandwiches, burgers, and house specialties – Fish & Chips, Almost Famous (chicken tenders marinated in buttermilk and buffalo sauce), and Mac Jagger and Bacon Bits (house-made mac and cheese loaded with breaded chicken, smoky bacon and blend of melted cheeses).
RIBCO also plans a Sunday brunch (maybe more than once a week), especially for third shifters coming off work.
The RIBCO interior Dec. 17, 2025 (photo by Jonathan Turner).
Talent booker with experience
Kate Dale, co-owner of Hive Event Consulting, is former director of entertainment at Common Chord (when it was River Music Experience) and has loads of booking experience, to bring to being the new talent buyer for RIBCO, which she called “really exciting and is an incredible honor.”
“Zach has a great, positive vision for helping revitalize downtown Rock Island, and naturally gets people excited about contributing to bringing more patrons and entertainment down to The District,” Dale said Tuesday by email. “RIBCO is an iconic venue and gem to have in the QC, and Zach doesn’t want to change that. We want to simply carry the torch and continue to bring in great acts that they’ve been doing for the past 40 years.”
The grand opening is this Friday, Dec. 19th, at 5 p.m., and the Quad Cities rock bands Running Man and Lady Igraine will start at 8 p.m. Running Man was the last band to play RIBCO before it shut down two years ago, so it seemed fitting to have them back and help reopen the venue,” Dale said. “Plus, both bands really rip, so we wanted to kick open the doors with a high energy showcase.”
The QC rock band Running Band will play the first live show back, on Friday at 8 p.m., no cover.
On Saturday night, RIBCO will host Paxton Sherbeyn & The Solid Gold Boys, “which are an excellent young QC blues band,” she said, noting they are celebrating and releasing their new album, “A Night on Knoxville.” Alan Sweet and Colten Menke will open the show Saturday at 8 p.m. Both shows are free to the public, and open to ages 21+.
RIBCO will only be open Thursdays through Sundays for the first couple of weeks, and then in early 2026, will be open more widely for lunch and dinner service. Live music is planned Fridays & Saturdays, with the intention to host more entertainment during the week as they get fully open and situated.
“The majority of our shows in December and January will be free admission, to help welcome the community back to the space and make it accessible to all,” Dale said. “Touring bands and ticketed shows will slowly trickle in, but we are going to make it a priority to make sure that at least some of the entertainment each month is free to attend and enjoy.”
They plan to offer a wide variety of live music genres to keep the offerings diverse and inclusive. Patrons can expect all varieties of rock, blues, Americana, funk, soul, punk, pop, country and more, from touring artists to the best of local QC bands.
Dale did help manage and open the renovated Capitol Theatre in downtown Davenport, but all the entertainment there is booked by First Fleet Concerts.
For more information on RIBCO, visit its website HERE and Facebook page HERE.
A Christmas tree in a RIBCO window, Dec. 17, 2025 (photo by Jonathan Turner).
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