Iron Hill Brewery in West Chester is officially seeking a new tenant
“It will not be reopening as Iron Hill Brewery,” said John Barry, who has owned the building for three years and this week also bought the restaurant's liquor license and interior assets.
The search is on for a new restaurateur to take over the shuttered Iron Hill Brewery in West Chester, after the building’s owner bought the assets from the former CEO of Famous Dave’s BBQ.
John Barry, a Massachusetts-based real estate investor who owns the building, and Jeff Crivello, the ex-CEO of Famous Dave’s, said Friday that Barry purchased the liquor license and all assets inside the former West Chester Iron Hill, one of 16 locations that closed abruptly this fall when the regional chain filed for bankruptcy.
In November, Crivello had said he intended to revive the West Chester Iron Hill, under the same name or as a new concept, after a bankruptcy judge approved his offer to buy the assets of the location and nine others in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and South Carolina.
Both Barry and Crivello declined to disclose financial details of the West Chester deal, which was finalized on Christmas Eve. It was first reported Wednesday by Hello, West Chester, a local news website.
“As a landlord, I was hoping to have a chance to purchase the assets,” Barry said Friday in an interview. “I wanted to buy and keep the liquor license with the building. It allows me to get a better tenant in there that is probably going to pay a little bit more in rent.”
Iron Hill had anchored the old Woolworth’s building since 1998, when the brewery founders opened their second location there. Many local business owners credit Iron Hill with sparking a restaurant renaissance in the borough, as the brewery did in other Philadelphia suburbs.
» READ MORE: Shuttered Iron Hill breweries sit empty across the Philly area. What will become of them?
Situated at West Chester’s central corner of High and Gay Streets, Iron Hill had a 30-year lease, with a 15-year extension, Barry said.
Barry, a West Chester native who now lives outside Boston, purchased the nearly 30,000-square-foot building for $8.25 million in 2022, according to Chester County property records.
Barry said the next anchor tenant would take over a new lease for the now-vacant 10,000-square-foot space that can seat 300 people. He declined to specify what the lease terms might be.
“It will not be reopening as Iron Hill Brewery,” said Barry, who didn’t buy the rights to the name. “My goal would be to find something similar,” though not necessarily a brewery.
In buying the assets, Barry said the restaurant is essentially turnkey, with all the furniture and kitchen and brewing equipment still inside. A new tenant, however, may want to redesign, he said, or the space could even be subdivided for a restaurant and a retail space.
“It’s really important to me that we find the right tenant for the West Chester community,” Barry said. “It’ll take a little bit of time.”
But, he added, “my hope is we get somebody in there and operating by the summer.”
Elsewhere, Crivello said there is still hope that the Iron Hill brand could get another life.
“We’re working with a couple buyers that want to reopen [closed breweries] as Iron Hill,” Crivello said. He declined to say which locations could be resurrected.
In November, Crivello got the OK to acquire the assets of former Iron Hill brewpubs in Center City, Huntingdon Valley, Newtown, Wilmington, Lancaster, Hershey, and Rehoboth Beach, as well as West Chester and the two locations in South Carolina.
Crivello said Friday that he has since sold the assets of the former Iron Hills in Columbia and Greenville, S.C., to Virginia-based Three Notch’d Brewing Co. He said plans for the other locations were still in the works.