The city’s first restaurant with an onsite beer-brewing operation, or at least the first full-scale one in decades, won permit approval from the Encinitas Planning Commission Thursday.

Commissioners praised Encinitas Brewing Company’s proposal to open a restaurant with beer-brewing and craft-distilling production capabilities in the Plaza Encinitas Ranch shopping center. They said it will breathe new life into what’s now a fairly quiet shopping center on the city’s northeastern edge.

The project’s requested coastal development permit, design review permit and a major-use permit modification were unanimously approved by the planning commissioners, whose only modification was to recommend that the project’s backers include bike racks with space for at least six bikes given the increasing use of e-bikes in town.

In addition to approving the city permits, the commissioners also recommended that the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board grant the project’s request for a (Type 23) state alcohol license allowing a small beer manufacturing operation and a (Type 74) license for a craft distillery. The project does not require City Council approval.

Newly appointed city Planning Commissioner Bridget Kimball called the brewing company’s proposal a “good use of a space” in a shopping center that’s currently “kind of desolate,” while Commission Chair Steve Dalton told the project’s backers that he hoped “it succeeds beyond your expectations.”

Plans call for the new brewery to go into the former Islands Restaurant within the shopping center. Located near the northwest corner of Leucadia Boulevard and El Camino Real, the Plaza Encinitas Ranch shopping center also contains a relatively small Walmart store, plus a former, now-vacant REI store, a Starbucks and a few smaller shops.

One of the project’s backers, Brian McBride, told commissioners the center currently is a bit weirdly quiet, but “I think it works great for what we’re trying to do.”

McBride said he and his three partners — “all middle-aged guys with kids” who mostly live in Encinitas — picked the name of their brewery to reflect their love for Encinitas and vowed the brewery will be involved in community activities. While brewing alcohol is part of their business, “we’re a restaurant first,” he said, adding, “If it was just a brewery, I wouldn’t be part of it — probably none of us would be.”

Under their state alcohol permits, they will be required to serve food at all times, city Senior Planner Raffi Mangassarian said. They’ll also be able to sell the alcohol they brew on site to customers as take-out items in cans or kegs, but they can’t sell any other company’s alcoholic products as take-out items, city staff members said.

Proposed hours of operation are 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, and no live music will be allowed.

City employees said Encinitas Brewing Co. might be the city’s first-ever recipient of a license for a restaurant with an on-site beer-brewing operation, but an audience member said he believed there was a restaurant with a brewery area in the 1980s.

There’s also Fox Pointe Brewing Co., located within a new housing development along Leucadia Boulevard to the west of the shopping center. Its recently opened, small-scale brewing operation describes itself as “San Diego County’s first farm-to-tap brewery.” It operates under a special license that allows it to use hops it grows on site to produce its beer.

The former Islands Restaurant site that Encinitas Brewing Company is proposing to occupy includes a 5,500-square-foot building as well as outdoor dining space. The development plans call for remodeling the structure to add wood siding, a “contemporary metal canopy element,” and retractable floor-to-ceiling glass doors, a city staff report states. Plans also call for expanding an existing patio area from 517 square feet to 1,240 square feet, and adding a second outdoor patio area.