I've never seen anything like this before. A completely out of the blue instagram "shout out" that the brewery is going belly up, and that employees should plan accordingly (with "random" layoffs?). Is there anyway to verify that this is even actually from someone affiliated with the brewery? You're more tuned into the local beer scene than I am @honkduh, but I'm curious as to why you're not surprised by this. Not that I get over to Burnside all that often, but I never had the impression they were having any financial problems, and I always thought of them as a longtime, established PDX brewery that would likely continue to operate in PDX long after I'm gone. That being said, it appears this has now been confirmed. https://www.newschoolbeer.com/2019/02/burnside-brewing-co-has-closed.html
The story just hit New School Beer: https://www.newschoolbeer.com/2019/02/burnside-brewing-co-has-closed.html
So which is true? The "greedy landlord" narrative reported by New School, or the "couldn't pay their rent" narrative of the letter @jpbebeau posted? Some of the commentary in the Reddit thread the OP came from is pretty unflattering to the ownership/management of Burnside. I have no first-hand experience that can validate any of that commentary though.
I don't know, but that comment in parentheses at the end of the first paragraph under "Dear Tenant" sure sounds like "btw eff you."
I certainly don't have an answer, but I do have a "consumer" observation. Typically, the only time I would visit Burnside was for their pop up, fresh hop event every fall. I always liked the vibe there and thought their beers generally solid, but even so, increasingly it's become an area of town where I never think about driving to. The place isn't even a mile from my office (a 5 minute drive at most), but traffic out that way has really become pretty miserable. There's usually some sort of back-up on the bridge, as invariably at least one lane will be closed due to the ongoing construction that always seems to be taking place around there. Also, the trend I'm seeing in that part of town seems to be running counter to what Burnside has to offer. Le Pigeon is right across the street from BB, and Le Canard opened up right next door not too long ago. If Le Canard is any indication, I don't doubt for a minute that rents around that part of town have likely sky rocketed. For anyone who hasn't been, the place is a complete hole in the wall, selling high end, high priced, extremely trendy food (and oh by the way, they're VERY good at it). The place just screams "high rent" property. At least to me, BB seems like a dinosaur out of some lost, distant age. At least for that area of town. The last of couple of times I stopped by, my reaction was always "wow, I can't believe this place is still here. But I'm really glad it is!" While this is the first I've heard about any financial problems there, I can't exactly say I'm hugely surprised to hear that they might be having some.
I think we may have finally reached some type of saturation point with breweries in Portland. and unless you have rock solid finances and a niche market that you serve (great location, cans, beer nerd following, etc.) i can see a handful of places start to go under. Especially eastside breweries where rents and real estate are in bubble territory.
Sad..if this is a location being too expensive could they not re-open somewhere cheaper? As a taproom perhaps in a warehouse/light industrial type area?
Perhaps. But the posted letter states that the "Landlord also claims a landlord's lien against all of Tenant's chattels in the Premises as collateral," so they might not have any brewing equipment to brew with at this point.
On the Beervana Facebook post about this Ezra hinted at some things that weren't in his article Basically something happened that turned into a giant legal nightmare that basically made them insolvent.
I saw this earlier, which doesn’t exactly reveal any additional details. Definitely out of left field for this one... https://pdx.eater.com/2019/2/6/18214149/burnside-brewing-closed
So a couple more rumor things: - Brewery was for sale and they hadn't been packaging anything for a bit - Employee had been embezzling money for while which wasn't the first time this has happened at Burnside if I remember correctly
Doesn't mean a whole lot... Due to distribution, those could have been bottled in the fall. I would be curious to see if they have bottling dates on anything left on the shelves.
This, plus it seems that those that are closing did not have the best management practices. Mismanagement, in particular when there is restaurant involved, is recipe for disaster
