Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan & Aiden Fries.
Hi Bryan & Aiden, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
It’s a great story. A father and son on opposite ends of their careers, both disillusioned with what was around and in front of them, but without a map to the elusive “something better”. They make a change and take a big chance together. We don’t know how it ends yet, but we’re working as hard as we can to push it the way we want it to go.
In the early 2020s, I was 25 years into a career as a corporate executive and felt called to make a life change. My perspective on success had shifted, and my priorities and motivation along with that. We become like the environment and people we surround ourselves with, and my corporate environment had been pulling me in a direction I didn’t want to go. The internal dissonance kept growing louder.
At the same time, I was watching my oldest son, Aiden, approach the front end of his own career as he finished high school. Having grown up in the country with plenty of space and freedom to explore, he’d learned to love anything with a motor and a throttle. 4-wheelers, dirt bikes, lawn mowers, boats… and eventually trucks, especially diesel trucks. When he had the opportunity to participate in a diesel tech program during his Junior and Senior years, he jumped at it, and then used his summer break to work at a few different auto and diesel shops. He learned a ton, including the fact that he didn’t want to pursue a career as a shop mechanic. Fixing other people’s broken vehicles every day lost its luster quickly. So, Aiden was about to roll off the high school assembly line and into the workforce without a direction that he could get excited about. That was hard on my heart. As a parent, you want a path for your children.
During this time, I had begun reading the Bible, and where I’d lost faith in the virtue of a corporate career, I found a new faith in the Word. In it, I heard the call to better serve myself, my family, and others; an invitation to head in a different direction. Through prayer and reflection, I found the confidence to let go of the trappings of the corporate world in favor of… I didn’t know what. I was waiting for a lightning bolt to illuminate this new path, but only heard whispers. I learned to listen patiently. It took time, but the revelation came forth as an inspired, creative idea and the aspiration to bring it to life.
With energy around the idea of doing “something”, we had many conversations dreaming about what that something might be and took inventory of what we had to work with.
I brought a career’s worth of business experience to the table across multiple disciplines – finance, product development, marketing, communication, corporate and business development, and strategic partnerships My craft beer brand, Cock-a-Doodle Brews, had been a hobby for years and had gotten distribution around the KC metro area along with a few other cities in Missouri and KS. I also played in a band for a while and have a passion for great music.
Aiden brought a love of custom vehicles, growing mechanical expertise, and a great eye for picture and video content, which he had used to build a remarkably large following within the auto community on social media. Beyond the hard skills, Aiden is also blessed with a remarkably affable personality and a fearless spirit for trying new things.
Those were the ingredients in the pantry – a pretty diverse stock. Plenty of potential directions. In the exploration for a recipe, we came to see them all as being congruent with one another and began to imagine what a mash up might look like. We got excited about the synergies between the communities who appreciate cool vehicles, craft brewing, and live events / entertainment.
The imagination and design phase of the journey is something we truly enjoyed. The freedom to dream creatively, develop, and implement big ideas isn’t easy to come by. We’re grateful to have been able to do that. The process brought our family together. It all felt different; it all felt good.
We grounded ourselves on several principles along the way. Of course, from a day to day standpoint, we wanted to do work that matters to us in an environment aligned with our priorities and interests. More than that, though, we wanted to build something remarkable – that the community it serves would miss if it were gone. And, at the highest level, we wanted our efforts to be of service more broadly and a model for others who may share similar faith and values. We had started a mission, Deliver Hope Ministry, in Tecpan Guatemala to build a Christian Community Center (another great story), and we wanted our business to be an engine which helps drive that mission forward.
Once we had the vision, our job was to trust it and fully commit to the call. We did. It took about 4 years from inception to bring the vision to life, and we fully opened for business in late September 2025.
That’s the origin story behind Revvelation Motors and the Revvelry Brewhouse.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Ideas are the easy part. Manifesting those ideas in real life takes a lot of grit. We knew going in that it wouldn’t be smooth. We prepared as well as we could, but…
Lesson 1: In construction, everything takes longer than expected.
The rigor of the planning process hit me right at the front end. Taking my building designs and having them translated into buildable plans took months and a team of engineers, followed by multiple municipal reviews to get the necessary construction permits. That was all before we could dig the first shovel of dirt.
Once actual construction started, what I had projected (or hoped) would be an 8–12 month build took more than two years. Some of the delay came from the usual suspects — weather, contractor hiccups, and the thousand details that never show up in the plans and have to be solved on site. A couple days before we began the interior framing, Aiden broke his neck in a 3-wheeler accident. You certainly can’t plan for those kinds of things, just react as best you can and keep moving forward. He toughed it out and was back on the job just a few weeks later.
I served as my own general contractor on the project, so optimism and the limits of my experience were factors. We also chose to tackle some of the construction ourselves. That extended the timeline, but it was deliberate. The interior layout and aesthetics of the space were extremely important to us, so we put in the work to make it exactly as we envisioned. Construction left us all exhausted, but we’re glad we did it that way and refused to cut corners.
Lesson 2: When you start operating, everything happens really fast.
With no prior experience running a taproom, auto dealership, custom garage, and event venue, the learning curve was extremely steep. To use an auto metaphor, we’ve had to build the car while driving it down the road.
At Revvelry Brewhouse, we were fortunate to hire a couple of experienced people who helped us open the doors and establish a manageable rhythm relatively quickly. There was some early turnover, but we now have a small group of fantastic bartenders who know many of our patrons’ names and drink preferences. They do an excellent job cultivating the welcoming, personal, relaxed atmosphere that keeps people coming back.
Two weeks after opening, we started hosting live music on weekends. The response from both patrons and musicians was amazing. Within the first month or so we had so much interest that our calendar for the entire next year filled up. We hit the ground running, and it accelerated our learning about managing a small-scale live-performance venue.
On the other side of the business, Revvelation Motors was originally conceived with several private mechanic bays where individuals could work on their own vehicles. Our idea was to serve the enthusiast community — people who were mechanically inclined but didn’t have a lift or the tooling to do the work themselves. That wasn’t the customer profile we ended up attracting, and the demand on Aiden’s time to “help out” customers who got stuck became unmanageable. So we pivoted away from that model and focused on wheels, tires and customization services instead. That’s been a lot more fulfilling.
Our wheel and tire shop can handle everything from replacing a daily-driver tire to setting customers up with 44-inch mud tires on custom 16-inch-wide wheels. It’s incredible how the right wheel-and-tire setup can completely transform an ordinary vehicle into something that turns heads.
In addition to wheels and tires, we’ve added detailing services, vehicle wraps, suspension levels and lifts, as well as custom accessories Window tinting is on the horizon. We absolutely love working with customers to make their cars and trucks stand out!
Revvelation Motors is also an auto dealer, and making quick decisions is a critical skill. Sourcing is the hardest part — and the most important. It’s not uncommon to buy collectible vehicles without having driven them, and sometimes without even seeing them in person. That takes a lot of intestinal fortitude. For the daily drivers, many of which come from local auto auctions, it’s about screening a large volume of prospects very quickly and trying not to miss big-ticket issues lurking under the hood. We’ve taken some gut punches; it happens. When it does, we do what it takes to fix what’s wrong rather than recycling the problem back through the auctions to another dealer who might not notice. Sound morals can be financially painful, but that’s how we’ve chosen to run our business.
Lesson 3: If you build it, they will come… if they find out about what you’ve built.
Field of Dreams is a fantastic, inspiring movie… but building awareness has been one of the most difficult aspects of our business. We built something remarkable. Most people who visit tell us they’ve never seen a place like it, and they almost always return with their friends. That’s the highest compliment we can receive, and word of mouth has been a great contributor to our growth so far. Still, letting people know we’re here remains our biggest challenge.
Our location is easy to reach — 10 minutes east of Lee’s Summit, right on Highway 50, with a large highway sign out front. But it’s a spot without retail foot traffic; you won’t just stumble in. We’re a destination. That dynamic shapes our marketing strategy, which leans heavily toward creating awareness through online channels.
So a huge thank you to Voyage KC for collaborating with us to share our story!
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Revvelation Motors and Revvelry Brewhouse?
What did we build? That’s a great question.
Ever heard of a collectible vehicle showroom inside a micro-brewery with an adjacent outdoor music stage and burnout pad? It’s truly remarkable and one-of-a-kind.
Revvelation Motors is built to be a hub for the automotive community. We’re a vehicle dealer and custom shop — wheels and tires, detailing, wraps, suspensions and accessories — but we’re also a place designed to bring enthusiasts together. Our big parking lot is a community hangout, and we love hosting events: cars & coffee, cruise nights, and cruise-in concerts. We even put a burnout pad behind the shop and hold burnout events several times a year. Aiden put together an amazing short video from a couple our events to showcase the kind of events we host at Revvelation Motors – it’s definitely worth checking out: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WHzS3dlCYUI
The Revvelation Motors dealer showroom for our collectible vehicles sits inside the Revvelry Brewhouse. You step into a two-story, elegant craft beer and cocktail lounge that looks directly into an indoor showroom filled with amazing vehicles — it’s quite a view while you’re enjoying your drink. We welcome patrons to wander the showroom and check everything out. It’s a super cool experience. We’ve had everything from a ’72 Chevelle and a Tesla Cyberbeast to a McLaren 570S and a huge lifted 1981 Chevy K20 squarebody in the showroom. People love it.
Everything on draft comes from small breweries within the KC metro area, and our bartenders make some of the best craft cocktails in Kansas City. We just completed the approval process to operate as a brewery, so we’re looking forward to re-introducing Cock-a-Doodle Brews beers in the coming months.
Like Revvelation Motors, the Revvelry Brewhouse is designed to bring the community together. We have a gorgeous patio and greenspace with an outdoor stage where we host live music on the weekends. The talent that performs here is incredible — I’m continually blown away. The upstairs mezzanine, which we call the Revv Lounge, is an elegant, moody, adults-only space perfect for relaxing, playing games, and catching indoor live music during the cooler months. It even has bar service from below via a dumbwaiter we named The Tipsy Trolley. We also make the space available for private events, which has been a lot of fun.
Our cornhole league, which started last fall, has grown into something much bigger than we expected thanks to the inspiration and hard work of a few of our players and patrons. We recently formed a competitive cornhole club — Cock-a-Doodle Baggers — that’s getting a lot of attention in KC cornhole circles. Tuesday league nights now run seven sets of boards and draw a big crowd. Depending on the season we mix in other activities too — cruise night, open jams, music bingo. There’s always something going on.
Our whole family is active in the businesses. Aiden and I manage day-to-day operations. He loves the dealership side and spends much of his time sourcing, advertising, and selling vehicles. My wife, Melanie, makes sure everything looks beautiful, designs our cocktails and charcuterie, and helps run the bar. My daughter, Danielle, keeps the place clean and does vehicle wraps in the shop. My youngest son, August, keeps the greenspace mowed and trimmed. Even our shop cat, Chili, gets involved — he loves wandering the patio and making new friends. Everyone loves Chili.
We’re truly grateful to bring something so unique and remarkable to the communities we serve. It always puts a smile on our faces to see someone visiting for the first time and get that “Wow!” reaction. It’s not something anyone expects, especially not in a small town like Lone Jack, Missouri. We love that.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Come and see. For us, it all starts with a visit — whether that’s for a craft beer or cocktail, a live concert, a car meet, a set of wheels and tires, or just to check out the latest vehicles in the showroom. We want to grow organically from people who are curious enough to stop by, have a great experience, and then tell their friends and family about it.
If you’re in a car club, we’d love to host a meet-up so you can gather, share stories, and check out each other’s rides. Our mezzanine, the Revv Lounge, is a terrific place for a club meeting or simply to hang out as a group.
Beyond formal gatherings, we want Revvelation Motors and the Revvelry Brewhouse to be known as the spot where the automotive community congregates on Friday and Saturday nights. Our large private parking lot was designed for exactly that purpose, and the brewhouse, outdoor patio, and stage give everyone who drives out a place that truly levels up the experience.
We want to build a reputation as a hub for local auto enthusiasts… and KC’s Premier Drive Bar!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.revvelry.com | www.revvelationmotors.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revvelationmotors/ | https://www.instagram.com/revvelrybrews/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doodlebrews/ | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092763725395
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@revvelationmotors
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@revvelationmotors
