Mid-Atlantic brewpub chain Iron Hill Brewery abruptly closed its 16 remaining locations overnight, weeks after it shuttered three in a move that a spokesperson at the time said was “to position Iron Hill for long-term success.”
“After many wonderful years serving our communities, all Iron Hill locations have closed,” the company wrote in a Facebook post. “It has been our pleasure to serve you and we are deeply grateful for your support, friendship and loyalty over the years.
“We sincerely hope to return in the future, and when we do, we promise to welcome you with open arms,” Iron Hill continued.
Iron Hill’s Facebook page limited comments on its most recent posts. As a result, employees and patrons have gathered digitally on a September 19 post about the company’s Oktoberfest menu to express their disappointment.
A South Carolina-based worker said she learned of Iron Hill’s closing – and the loss of her job – in a group chat message overnight.
“I’m livid for myself and on behalf of the rest of the staff that poured their hearts into making these restaurants run efficiently for this greedy [corporation],” Kelli Todd wrote. “Most of these people have families and are living paycheck to paycheck. And we had no idea this was coming. I’m disgusted by their greed and lack of compassion.”
The message employees received informing them of Iron Hill’s closure via Restaurant365 cited “ongoing financial challenges.” Todd posted screenshots of the message on Facebook, as well as shared it with Brewbound.
“The company has made the difficult decision to file for bankruptcy and, regrettably, will be permanently closing its doors,” the message said. “We understand that this news is coming with limited notice; however, we have been working diligently behind the scenes to secure new sources of funding and explore alternative solutions to avoid this situation.”
The message added that final payroll would be processed on Thursday, September 25, with direct deposits hitting accounts along with paper checks mailed to workers. It did not mention any severance payments.
No bankruptcy petitions have been filed yet in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The company appears not to have filed Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications (WARN) in any state where it operates. WARN filings are federally required notices before mass layoffs, providing affected staff 60 days’ notice for “layoffs of 50 or more workers at a single site, where 50 is at least one-third of the total full-time workforce at that site, or any layoffs of 500 or more workers at a single site,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Iron Hill operated 16 locations across five states:
- Delaware – Rehoboth Beach and Wilmington;
- Georgia – Atlanta;
- New Jersey – Maple Shade;
- Pennsylvania – Exton, Hershey, Huntingdon Valley, Lancaster, Lehigh Valley, Media, Newtown, North Wales, Philadelphia and West Chester;
- And South Carolina – Columbia, Greenville.
The company closed its flagship store in Newark, Delaware, on September 10, along with its locations in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, and Voorhees, New Jersey. Iron Hill announced those closings in a press release, which it did not do for the closing of its remaining stores.
In that release, CEO Mark Kirke, who was promoted to the role in January, directed customers to Iron Hill’s remaining 16 locations, which are now closed.
Speaking to Brewbound, Todd said she and her co-workers at Iron Hill’s Greenville, South Carolina outpost learned of the closure the day it happened. Todd said management seemed upbeat about the chain’s prospects after recent closures, including those earlier this month and the closing of Iron Hill’s location in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood in May 2024, which made this week’s chain-wide shutdown shocking.
“We had no warning,” she said. “We had absolutely no inkling of an idea that any other location was in the process of being shut down. We were one of the higher-performing stores, so we thought we were safe from an individual close.”
Todd was hired as a bartender and server in February and estimates she has worked at least 1,000 hours since then. She rarely ended a shift with less than $100 in tips, she said.
“When I first started, I genuinely enjoyed it,” she said. “I enjoyed all my co-workers. That’s what made it good. But they slowly started integrating changes and cutting pay and cutting hours, and we were all confused.”
The Greenville location employed about 50 workers, Todd estimated. About a month ago, Iron Hill eliminated the captain role for servers, a shift leader position, which led several servers to quit, she said.
“We’ve been really working on a skeleton crew there,” Todd said. “All the people that stayed and were loyal really just got the shit end of the stick for it.”
Iron Hill, which was founded in 1996, was the fourth-largest pub brewery in the country by volume in 2024, according to data from the Brewers Association (BA). Its output was flat at 13,750 barrels of beer last year, which followed a slightly down year in 2023 (-2%), but strong double-digit growth in 2022 and 2021 (+36% and +41%, respectively).
Brewpubs accounted for 6.6% of all craft beer by volume in 2024, according to the BA. The country’s 3,552 brewpubs produced a combined 1.5 million barrels of beer last year, according to the trade group, which defines brewpubs as craft breweries that sell at least 75% of their volume on-site and offer significant food service.
For the first time since 2010, brewpub closings (189) outpaced openings (168) in 2024. Despite that, the number of brewpubs climbed 1.4% year-over-year (YoY), the second-largest increase in brewery classes of trade behind regional craft breweries, which increased 8.6% YoY, according to the BA.
These gains may not be solely due to new breweries opening. In the case of brewpubs, taprooms converting to brewpubs by adding food service may contribute to the growth.
Iron Hill’s business model differed slightly from traditional brewpubs in that the company also distributed beer to more than 700 retailers in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, according to its website. In 2021, it opened a production facility in Exton, Pennsylvania, to boost supply beyond what individual brewpubs could produce.
Iron Hill’s growth in the past decade came in part as a result of private equity firm A&M Capital. When the deal was made in 2016, the brewpub chain had 11 locations, a number that later reached as high as 20. Iron Hill is still listed on A&M’s investment portfolio on the firm’s website.
An Iron Hill spokesperson has not returned a request for comment.