P.J. Whelihan’s restaurant group may move into a former Iron Hill Brewery

The company that owns P.J. Whelihan’s may be moving into a former Iron Hill Brewery in Bucks County.

PJW Opco LLC, which is registered at the headquarters of PJW Restaurant Group, was approved to take over a lease for the shuttered Iron Hill in Newtown, effective Dec. 31, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey.

PJW marketing director Kristen Foord declined to comment.

The nearly 8,000-square-foot brewpub in the Village at Newtown shopping center has sat empty since September, when Iron Hill abruptly closed all its locations and filed for liquidation bankruptcy. The Newtown Iron Hill had been among the chain’s newest locations, having opened in 2020.

Brixmor Property Group, which owns the Village at Newtown, is “excited about what’s in the works” for the former Iron Hill space, spokesperson Maria Pace said in a statement, but she declined to share details.

The court documents did not indicate PJW’s plans for the Newtown site.

PJW’s most well-known franchise is P.J. Whelihan’s, the regional bar-restaurant chain that started in the Poconos in 1983. There are now 25 P.J. Whelihan’s locations from Harrisburg to Washington Township, with the vast majority in the Philadelphia area.

Haddon Township-based PJW also owns the Pour House, which has locations 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.

As 2026 gets underway, Iron Hill’s bankruptcy case continues to make its way through the courts. In recent weeks, Iron Hill’s leases in Exton, Maple Shade, and North Wales were formally rejected, according to court documents. That means these empty breweries are getting closer to finding new tenants.

At the Shops at Eagleview in Exton, landlord Suresh Kagithapu is already advertising the nearly 20,000-square-foot taphouse and production facility that Iron Hill vacated.

“Any out-of-town brewery with plans to leverage existing brewery infrastructure and scale its operations in the region would be a good fit, as it would save significant tenant improvement costs,” Kagithapu said in a statement. “I also believe a grocery store would serve the community very well.”

In West Chester, landlord John Barry is also on the hunt for a new restaurateur to take over prime real estate long occupied by Iron Hill.

On Christmas Eve, Barry, a Massachusetts-based real estate investor, inked a deal to buy the liquor license and all interior assets of the location at the borough’s central corner of High and Gay Streets.

“It will not be reopening as Iron Hill Brewery,” Barry said in a recent interview. “My goal would be to find something similar,” though not necessarily a brewery.

Barry purchased the assets from Jeff Crivello, the former CEO of Famous Dave’s BBQ, who in November was approved by a bankruptcy judge to revive 10 Iron Hills under the same name or as a new concept. Barry and Crivello declined to disclose the financial details of the West Chester deal.

Crivello said he has since sold the assets of the South Carolina Iron Hills — in Columbia and Greenville — to Virginia-based Three Notch’d Brewing Co.

The Newtown location was originally among the locations of which Crivello was approved to buy the assets, pending negotiations with landlords. Court documents indicate the asset sale was put on hold amid a landlord objection.

Founded in Newark, Del., Iron Hill Brewery operated for nearly 30 years, earning a reputation as a local craft-brewing pioneer and a family-friendly mainstay in the Philadelphia suburbs. In recent years, the chain had expanded into South Carolina and Georgia and had announced plans to open a Temple University location that never materialized.

When brewery executives filed for bankruptcy, they reported that they owed $20 million to creditors and had about $125,000 in the bank.