Forever Falcons: Juniper Brewing Company owners soar to success in downtown Bowling Green

BGSU alumni Chris ’03 and Zach Tracy ’97 fulfill dream of investing in Bowling Green business as Juniper celebrates five years

As Bowling Green State University students, Chris ’03 and Zach Tracy ’97 never could have predicted where they would find themselves a lifetime later.

The owners of Juniper Brewing Company in downtown Bowling Green are celebrating five years of being in business in 2025, an achievement intertwined with their experience at BGSU, both as students and highly engaged members of the University community.

Like many alumni, the Tracys found professional success in their fields after graduation, but they felt called to return to Bowling Green and turn an open Main Street space into what has quickly become a local favorite.

The business has expanded into what used to be three commercial units, operates a café and restaurant that serves as a hub of downtown BG and now sells its beer in retail giants like Kroger, Meijer and Wal-Mart.

A strong connection with BGSU

Juniper finding success just a short walk from the BGSU main campus is no coincidence.

“Bowling Green is such a special place,” Chris Tracy said. “It’s where I really got the chance to spread my wings and be the adult I became. There’s something so unique about Bowling Green because it has the charm of this small-town, apple-pie America that gives it this unbelievable draw, and then you combine that with a beautiful campus.

“There’s really a magic about it.”

The Tracys have remained connected to their alma mater in significant and enduring ways.

Juniper collaborated with BGSU Athletics and fans to name a BGSU-themed blonde ale called Ale Ziggy Zoomba, for which the can’s design features Freddie and Freida Falcon.

Chris Tracy works with the University’s innovative Life Design programming to provide insight to BGSU students about entrepreneurship, developing leadership skills and operating a small business. Their “Giving Mondays” programming has raised thousands for local charities, and Juniper’s staff, now up to 50 employees, is made largely of BGSU students.

The Tracys said one of the reasons their business idea has continued to work is a quest for learning, which makes them a natural fit alongside their alma mater.

“Academia really speaks to both of us. There is constant fire in both of us that really needs that intake of knowledge, insight and experience, and that is so much of what college is about,” Zach Tracy said. “Walking onto campus to us never, ever gets old. It’s always been this place that has energy and endless potential.”

From biochemistry to brewing

The Tracys took a circuitous route to beer brewing as a profession, but took crucial first steps into gaining expertise they apply every day as BGSU students.

Guided by faculty like Bill Scovell, Ph.D., an emeritus chemistry professor, and the late Neocles Leontis, Ph.D., Zach Tracy said he refined his love of science as a biochemistry major at BGSU.

By developing lab skills and research experience, he began laying the groundwork for scientific expertise that has proven invaluable as a beer brewer.

“I will always love and be fascinated by science. From the academic side of things, I loved every minute of it,” Zach Tracy said. “I had amazing professors that really helped foster and develop that appetite for knowledge, and I loved the application of science and being able to really see it.”

Originally a forensic detective in New York before returning home to Ohio to teach high school chemistry, Zach Tracy began brewing his own beer as a hobby – in effect, using scientific principles to experiment with new variables and refining recipes with data analysis to end up with desired results.

When his home brews began winning awards, the idea of applying science to beer brewing went from being a side project to a serious business idea.

A communications graduate from BGSU, Chris Tracy often jokes that she accidentally had a 15-year career in banking, through which she kept finding her greatest professional joys in connecting with people.

She quickly found a home in community development real estate finance and rose to be a senior vice president at Huntington Bank, where she led a team that managed a portfolio of more than $1 billion in assets.

The experience not only gave her critical financial know-how when running a small business, but an appetite for using one’s career to improve the lives of others as she had done when investing in communities through real estate development.

Investing in Bowling Green

When the downtown BG space formerly occupied by Panera became available, the couple saw the vision of everything they wanted: a welcoming environment, a partnership that made sense, a multi-pronged business idea and the possibility to be a community connector right in Bowling Green.

“We were driven to invest here,” Chris Tracy said. “We knew that Panera was moving, so once we locked in the physical space, we could really see what it was going to look like.

“People will ask, ‘What’s your target market?’ I tell them it’s everybody. From the beginning, we said we wanted to be a hub. That was exactly what we were looking for and what we hoped to create.”

Through a rocky startup period during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 to its official launch in 2021, Juniper endured, allowing the Tracys to keep thriving in a place they love.

In a different career and living in Cleveland with their three young children just six years ago, the decision to come back to Bowling Green has been one they’ve cherished.

“It certainly was not a Point A to Point B journey, but if you look at every one of those stops along the way, it all makes sense,” Zach Tracy said.

As the establishment celebrates five years, the Tracys have found a special part of owning the business: Just as they were driven to invest in Bowling Green, the University community is rooting for their success, too.

“Zach and I both feel the support and the love from the BG community, there’s no question about that,” she said. “That’s been like gas on the fire for us – it makes us that much more driven to succeed here.”