In a heartbreaking move for a lot of folks – even if it’s just for nostalgia’s sake – Craftworks Holdings closed down “several” of their locations across the country in the last few weeks including the Gordon Biersch location that is located in the Columbus Arena district – which had been there for a couple decades.
It’s no secret that Craftworks (who own Logan’s Steakhouse, Gordon Biersch and Rockbottom Brewery) has been struggling the last few years to keep up with a changing marketplace. The company, which for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 3rd, owns around 330 locations, a combination of breweries and restaurants in more than three dozen states.
In a statement, the CEO of Craftworks, Hazem Our said:
“Over the past 16 months, we have made significant progress on many fronts to transform our business and position our brands for long-term growth and success. As a further step forward in our transformation, we exited in recent weeks a select group of our locations that were our poorest performers. We are now looking forward to completing an expedited process that we are confident puts our business on solid financial footing for the future”
About Rock Bottom
The company (Rock Bottom) was founded in 1991 in Denver by Boulder restaurateur Frank Day (his wife, Gina, is the longtime owner of Boulder Beer Company… which closed the doors to its pub in February of this year). The brand was built upon that location, which then opened chains across the country making it one of the largest restaurant and brewery companies in the country.
Rock Bottom and Gordon Biersch merged in 2010, financed by an investment of somewhere around $150 million dollars by investment firm ‘Centerbridge Capital Partners’ – and the resulting company consolidated their operations into Tennessee in 2019.
Rock Bottom has fought to survive in today’s quick-changing craft beer world, and our location here in Cincinnati deserves a little recognition for who they are. The brewpub (while yes… it’s a chain) makes its own beer, with some of them being exclusive to each location that they are brewed. Our location opened on Fountain Square in August of 1996, and has been chugging along, making some tasty beer ever since.
But… Are They Safe?
The easy answer to this is… no-one knows. The recent closures of Gordn Biersch locations caught most people by surprise – so it’s reasonable to say that it could happen. The quote above by the Craftworks CEO leads me to believe that the company is not expecting to be forced to close anymore locations – but again… anything could happen.
Let’s do it this way – the next time you find yourself down on fountain square, stop in for a pint. Remember why this place is fun, remember why you loved them when the options to snag a beer were few and far between.
Show Rock Bottom some love.