Woodburn Is Closed? What Does THIS Mean?

Written By: The Gnarly Gnome

This is a little bit of good news/bad news for fans of Woodburn and the March First Family of spaces around Cincinnati. I don’t love how it makes me feel… but we’re going to break it all down and see how we should feel with all of this.

March First is opening a new Cincinnati Distilling bottle shop space and closing its Woodburn taproom “temporarily.” Let’s consider both of these pieces one at a time.

Cincinnati Distilling Heads To Monroe

The Cincinnati Premium Outlets in Monroe are being announced as the next location in the big rollout of Cincinnati Distilling bottle shops. We saw the first one open in Kenwood (inside the mall) last year, and then the announcement came early this year of the space in Polaris Fashion Place up in Columbus. The third spot at the outlets in Monroe will be a great addition for the brands.

I can’t think of a reason that snagging a bottle of whiskey, rum, vodka, or my favorite, the Voltage Peppermint Schnapps, while you’re doing your shopping would be a bad thing. It almost makes shopping seem like a good time to me.

The company is clearly seeing a lot of success with this model and is using it to expand its footprint for the distillery side of its business in a unique way that benefits it in many unique ways.

With the announcement, though, comes the other news.

Woodburn Is Closed

I have to be very clear about this—the press release says that this Woodburn closing is a “temporary closing.” The company still owns the space; they’re not planning on getting rid of it, and that’s a great piece of this puzzle.

The next line in that press release, though, goes on… “The future of the Woodburn location has not yet been determined, but will remain closed for the near term.”

Ok… what does that mean?

They make it a point to let us know that it’s part of their move into the retail environment – and are making “tactical moves within their footprint to redeploy some of their teams” – part of that is the management team from Woodburn heading to these new retail locations. The press release says THAT necessitates the closure, with remaining team members being offered other jobs within the company.

Is this a staffing closure?

What I Think

I can’t help but feel this isn’t the full story. They hopefully have some sort of long-term plans for the taproom, which would be turning 10 this summer. It’s the oldest taproom in the March First portfolio and holds a special place in the story of Cincinnati craft beer.

I believe them when they call this temporary… but I don’t know that we’ll see Woodburn in the same way ever again. A rebrand wouldn’t surprise me, a name change… a new rebirth of SOME kind. If their push into their spirits business is doing as well as it seems with the opening of their retail bottle shops, could we see a Walnut Hills Cincinnati Distilling Location? None of that would surprise me in the slightest.

I don’t know what’s next… but I don’t think it looks great for Woodburn as we know it.