Wilmington, DE – Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant (“Iron Hill”), a leading upscale brewpub chain featuring award winning craft beers and from-scratch cooking, has partnered with A&M Capital Opportunities (“AMCO”), a group within A&M Capital focusing on growth-oriented, lower middle market companies, to support Iron Hill’s expansion into new Mid-Atlantic markets.
Founded in 1996 by home brewers Kevin Finn and Mark Edelson, and restaurateur Kevin Davies in Newark, DE, Iron Hill has grown from its original location to 11 units serving the greater Philadelphia/Wilmington region.
“Since its founding 20 years ago, Iron Hill has always provided the highest quality food and beer in an environment that‘s part of the community fabric” says Kevin Finn, Co-Founder and President of Iron Hill. He went on to say “we are truly humbled by the reception and loyalty from our patrons over the last two decades.”
The Company’s focus on service, quality and community has led to Iron Hill winning 44 medals at the Great American Beer Festival over the last 19 years, being rated as one of Zagat’s most popular Philadelphia restaurants, and being named “World Champion Brewpub” at the World Beer Cup three times. Finn went on to say “every award hanging in our offices is a direct result of the amazing talent and effort of our team. Their passion and dedication have been the reason for our success.”
With their 12th location slated to open in Huntingdon Valley, PA in summer 2016, the Company wanted a capital partner to accelerate growth to bring Iron Hill to more communities throughout the East Coast. “We focus on creating partnerships with strong entrepreneurial leaders like the team from Iron Hill to help businesses achieve their fullest potential.” stated Drew Baird, Managing Director and Co-Founder of AMCO. “The Iron Hill brand is uniquely positioned to appeal to a very broad customer base and we plan to expand so even more communities have the opportunity to experience all that Iron Hill has to offer.”
“Iron Hill has always focused on building for the long-term, and the AMCO partnership will allow us to invest significantly in strengthening our business as we accelerate the opening of Company owned stores across the East Coast,” stated Mark Edelson, co-Founder and Head of Brewing Operations. He went on to say “we knew AMCO was the right partner to help execute our growth strategy because of their unique combination of partnering with founders to build businesses and their affiliation with Alvarez & Marsal, the largest operational consulting firm in the world. This provides access to a deep bench of industry and functional experts that we can leverage to support our continued expansion.”
In addition to providing capital to facilitate growth, Drew Baird and Paul Lattanzio, the founding partners of AMCO, will join Iron Hill’s Board of Directors and share their extensive experience building great consumer facing brands. “After getting to know the management team, we knew that Iron Hill was a brand positioned for growth. We are thrilled to work with Kevin, Kevin and Mark in this exciting next stage of growth,” stated Paul Lattanzio, Senior Managing Director and Co-Founder of A&M Capital Opportunities.
Geraty Investments, a Minneapolis based restaurant focused boutique investment bank, acted as Iron Hill’s advisor, and Minor & Brown, PC of Denver, CO served as legal counsel. Sidley Austin LLP served as legal counsel to AMCO.
About Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant:
Founded in 1996, Iron Hill is an upscale casual restaurant and craft brewery chain. Iron Hill currently operates 11 brewery & restaurants in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey and is the seventh largest brewpub group in the United States. Iron Hill focuses on hand crafting both beer and food from scratch, using only fresh, high quality ingredients designed to delight customers. Iron Hill is a customer focused enterprise, whose motto is “Inspire Loyalty” and for the past two decades the Company has delivered on that promise in the communities it serves.
About A&M Capital Opportunities:
AMCO is a differentiated growth equity group which partners with owners of middle market companies to help them achieve their growth opportunities, while providing flexible capital solutions. Through their association with Alvarez & Marsal, one of the largest multi-national operations advisory firms in the world, AMCO evaluates investments in most any industry, but generally focuses on consumer & retail, light industrial, business services and healthcare.