Closed Iron Hill Brewery in Newtown is officially becoming a P.J. Whelihan’s franchise
The Haddon Township-based restaurant group signed a lease for the nearly 8,000-square-foot space in a Bucks County shopping center.
The company behind P.J. Whelihan’s is officially moving into a shuttered Iron Hill Brewery.
The Haddon Township-based PJW Restaurant Group has signed a lease for Iron Hill’s former location at the Village at Newtown, according to Brian Finnegan, the CEO of Brixmor Property Group, which owns the Bucks County shopping center.
PJW marketing director Kristen Foord confirmed the lease signing, saying in an email that the company was “not in a position to share additional specifics” at this time.
The move was approved by a federal judge last month as part of Iron Hill’s bankruptcy proceedings.
Like more than a dozen other former Iron Hills throughout the region, the nearly 8,000-square-foot space in Newtown has sat empty since the Exton-based brewpub chain closed all locations and filed for liquidation bankruptcy this fall.
Iron Hill opened in the affluent suburb in 2020. The restaurant moved in after Brixmor refurbished the more than 200,000-square-foot complex on South Eagle Road.
As part of the revamp, the developer added new buildings, allowing it to bring in shops and restaurants like Iron Hill, Harvest Seasonal Grill, and Turning Point. The 30-acre complex is anchored by the high-end grocer McCaffrey’s Food Markets.
In Newtown, “we’ve got Free People and Lululemon and Ulta that we added to the shopping center,” Finnegan said Wednesday in an interview. “We’ve got a lot of strong service tenants. We also have Capital Grill and Harvest, so some great food and beverage options.”
And soon, he said, that list will also include P.J. Whelihan’s.
PJW’s most well-known restaurant is P.J. Whelihan’s, which started in the Poconos in 1983 and has expanded to include 25 P.J. locations, the majority of which are in the Philly region.
PJW also owns the Pour House in Exton, North Wales, and Westmont, Haddon Township; the ChopHouse in Gibbsboro; the ChopHouse Grille in Exton; Central Taco & Tequila in Westmont; and Treno, also in Westmont.
While the Newtown restaurant will get new life soon, many other former Iron Hills still sit vacant.
Some landlords are actively looking for tenants, with West Chester’s John Barry saying that he hopes to have a lease signed by the end of this month.
“We have a number of groups interested in the space and a few [letters of intent] have been submitted,” Barry said in an email last month.
In other places, such as Voorhees, township officials and community members remain in the dark about whether another tenant will move in soon, and landlords can’t be reached.
A few of the closed breweries may be revived under new owners, though details are slim.
A federal judge last month approved the acquisition of Iron Hill’s trademark and intellectual property in conjunction with the transfer of restaurant leases in Center City, Huntingdon Valley, Hershey, Lancaster, and Wilmington.
Representatives of the potential new owner, “Rightlane LLC,” have been unable to be reached. Contacted through the owner of Iron Hill’s building in Center City, Rightlane declined to comment to the Philadelphia Business Journal earlier this month.