Great Basin Brewing Co. owner Bonda Young and her co-owner husband, Tom, began running into a good problem the last few years: They were running out of room to brew their beer.

“We’ve been looking around for a couple of years to find the right location, what we felt was the right location,” Young said. “We felt the need to expand. Our main problem here is we have not been able to brew enough beer.”

After searching all over Reno, Sparks and outside the region, the Youngs have found a place to add onto their Sparks-based business. Next year, the 16-year-old restaurant and brewery will expand its home to south Reno, where it will take over the vacant building formerly occupied by On the Border restaurant on South Virginia Street.

The facility will require major renovation to transform the 8,000-square-foot space from a Mexican cantina to a pub with a bar. Inside, there will be a brewery on display, more visible than the Victorian Avenue location, for the public to watch how beer is made.

“We have maxed out the space here,” she said. “We can’t grow any more here.” The new location will allow Great Basin to brew more than 1.2 million pints a year, Young said.

“The want is there from the public,” Young said. “They’re always looking to us to provide them with more beer.”

Great Basin carries 10 beers on tap at any time, with four “flagship” drinks, like its Ichthyosaur Pale Ale, also known as the “Ichy,” and six seasonal drinks. It also offers hamburgers, steaks, soups and salads and will soon offer pizza, as well. The same menu will be available at the South Virginia facility.

In addition to its traditional restaurant and pub setting, the new facility will offer larger space for a bottling line.

The ability to begin bottling its products, the first of which will be the Ichy, will not be ready at the time the location opens, but Young said the staff will work out the “kinks” and selling the bottled drinks will give the customer a take-home option.

“It’ll certainly get our brand out,” she said. “It’ll bring visibility. People know our name and people will be very excited to pick up our product. Again, though, that’s not our main focus.”

While many businesses have folded in hard times, Great Basin has always looked ahead and remained consistent in its customer service, Young said. She called it “icing on the cake” when summer events along Victorian Avenue help boost profits for businesses in the district, but most shops and restaurants have to work even harder to carry through the winter months when few visitors trod along the street.

“We are giving our customers a quality product and I think the pricing is good pricing,” she said. “I think people still want to got out and spend money as long as they’re feeling like they’re getting quality and good service. … We are lucky in that we feel we are a destination. We’re a little bit different than most other places in that we’re producing something that you can’t get anywhere else.”

As the company grows, so will its staff. Young said the new Great Basin location will mean hiring 50 to 60 people in sales and marketing, serving and brewing.

The Victorian restaurant has remained in good health and retained all of its 42 employees for a year.

“We treat our employees like we treat our customers — fairly — and it gives our business an edge,” she said. “It’s not just about drinking here. It’s about food, it’s about friendship, it’s about meeting people.”

Young said above all, she enjoys the camaraderie between her staff and her patrons.

“A lot of people tell us it’s like home,” she said. “They have a sense of belonging. A lot of our servers know our customers by name. They know what they’re going to order, they know what they want and I think that’s huge. People want to feel like they belong and that they’re important and we try to make them feel important.”