Iron Hill Brewery to reopen in Center City this weekend

The team that is bringing back Iron Hill Brewery has set a date for its first restaurant revival.

The Center City brewpub is scheduled to reopen at noon Sunday, the new ownership group confirmed Tuesday.

Iron Hill’s return comes seven months after the regional chain closed nearly 20 locations and filed for liquidation bankruptcy.

In January, a new ownership group acquired Iron Hill’s trademark and intellectual property, in conjunction with the transfer of five restaurant leases. Last month, it was revealed that founder Mark Edelson and other former company executives were behind the chain’s resurrection.

“We hope you will join us as we reestablish the brand you have loved for almost 30 years,” the new Iron Hill team wrote Monday on Instagram. “We are excited to introduce you to a new chapter, new menu items and a new beer called Unfinished Business.”

Before the public reopening on Sunday, the restaurant will host dinners on Friday and Saturday to support Sharing Excess, a Philly nonprofit that delivers surplus food to communities in need.

The reopening represents a boon for Center City’s troubled Market East neighborhood.

When the brewery opened in 2018 as an anchor tenant on the redeveloped 1100 block of Market Street, it was hailed as a potential bellwether of the area’s revitalization. If the restaurant had closed for good in Iron Hill’s bankruptcy, it would have left an 8,500-square-foot vacancy.

The new Iron Hill group is also preparing to revive the Huntingdon Valley, Wilmington, Hershey, and Lancaster locations in the coming weeks.

The exact reopening dates are contingent on many factors, including permitting, equipment, and staffing, spokesperson Paul Furiga said, but all four locations should be back in business by sometime this summer.

Reestablished Iron Hills won’t be able to honor old gift cards, Furiga said, because staff can’t access data from the previous system.

Former King of the Hill members will be automatically reenrolled in the restaurant’s loyalty program and get 100 complimentary points, but their old points will not transfer, according to Furiga.

Across the region, other former Iron Hills remain empty, with some landlords searching for new restaurateurs to fill the expansive spaces.

In Bucks County, the Haddon Township-based P.J. Whelihan’s is set to open a new location at the shuttered Iron Hill in the Village at Newtown shopping center sometime next month.

Iron Hill Brewery was founded by Edelson and Kevin Finn, two Delaware home brewers. With help from restaurateur Kevin Davies, they opened their first location in Newark, near the University of Delaware, in 1996.

They expanded over the years, with a focus on the Philly collar counties, and built a reputation as a local craft brewing pioneer and a kid-friendly restaurant chain, a winning combination for many suburban families.

The company’s growth had intensified in the past decade, at the same time the pandemic upended the restaurant industry.

Under a new private-equity owner, Iron Hill opened restaurants in South Carolina and Georgia, began canning beer out of a massive new Exton headquarters, and unveiled plans for a Temple University location that never opened.

By the time the company filed for bankruptcy this fall, it had racked up more than $20 million in debt, and had about $125,000 in the bank, according to court documents.

The locations being revived by the new ownership group, no members of which had personal liability related to the bankruptcy, were among the more successful Iron Hills, according to the bankruptcy documents. From January to September 2025:

The only other Iron Hill that brought in more than $3.2 million in gross revenue in 2025 was its Newtown location, which made $4.2 million and is now being turned into a P.J. Whelihan’s.