Saucy Brew Works will close its Columbus brewpub after service on Dec. 19, ending a six-year run for the Cleveland-based brewery and coffee shop on the city’s North Side, the business announced in a Facebook post reported by The Columbus Dispatch.
The brewpub, at 443 W. 3rd Ave., is the company’s only Columbus location. According to The Columbus Dispatch, the business told customers it still has specials and activities planned through the final day and invited them to come in and celebrate before the doors close.
“Being your gathering place has meant so much to our team, and we’ll deeply miss the friendships we’ve built with our neighbors, students, visiting beer lovers, and four-legged friends,” the post read, according to The Columbus Dispatch. “We still have plenty of specials and fun activities planned through December 19th, and we hope you’ll join us to celebrate this community and the years we’ve shared.”
The closing is limited to Columbus. Saucy Brew Works’ other locations — two in Cleveland and one in Put-in-Bay — will remain open, The Columbus Dispatch reported, and Urban Meyer’s Pint House will continue to serve the brewery’s beer, so Columbus-area drinkers will still find Saucy on tap elsewhere even after the West Third Avenue brewpub pours its last pint.
For the neighborhood around West Third Avenue, the announcement marks the loss of a gathering spot that spent six years serving residents, students and visitors on the city’s North Side. A brewpub is more than a bar for a neighborhood like this one: it is a coffee shop in the morning, a meet-up spot after work and a dog-friendly patio destination, and the business’s own farewell message leaned on exactly that identity, thanking “neighbors, students, visiting beer lovers, and four-legged friends.”
The Columbus location’s six years spanned a difficult stretch for restaurants and breweries everywhere. It opened its doors, built a neighborhood following, and became part of the North Side’s dining map — which is part of why a closing announcement with more than five weeks of runway matters: regulars get time for a proper goodbye, and the business gets to close on a celebratory note rather than a sudden shutdown.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: the Columbus brewpub at 443 W. 3rd Ave. closes after service on Dec. 19; the announcement came in the business’s Facebook post, as reported by The Columbus Dispatch; the Cleveland and Put-in-Bay locations stay open; and Urban Meyer’s Pint House will keep serving Saucy Brew Works beer. What we’re still waiting on: the business has not, in the announcement reported by The Columbus Dispatch, given a reason for the Columbus closing, said what happens to the Columbus staff, or announced what will take over the West Third Avenue space. NewsForce247 will update this story if the company answers those questions.
Closures like this one also land in a Columbus that is investing heavily in its future at the same time. Earlier this week NewsForce247 reported on Ohio State and Microsoft’s $250 million bet on a “smart hospital” in Columbus, and city leaders are separately weighing a major utility decision covered in our report on Columbus’s proposed 18 percent water rate hike ahead of the Nov. 23 vote. Big projects and small brewpubs together make up the city’s economy, and both kinds of stories shape how neighborhoods feel month to month.
What happens next is a five-week farewell. Through Dec. 19, the brewpub plans the specials and activities its post promised, and then the Columbus chapter of Saucy Brew Works ends — with the brewery itself continuing in Cleveland and Put-in-Bay, and its beer still pouring at Urban Meyer’s Pint House.
The timeline is unusually generous for a restaurant closing. Announced on Nov. 12 and effective after service on Dec. 19, the plan gives the brewpub a farewell stretch of more than five weeks — long enough for regulars to plan a final visit, for the staff to say proper goodbyes, and for the specials and activities the business promised to actually happen. Sudden closings leave customers holding unused gift cards and staff scrambling; this one, as announced, is built to end gradually and publicly.
For North Side regulars, the practical advice is simple: use the runway. Gift cards, growler fills and one last round with the staff who made the place a gathering spot are all easier in the next five weeks than they will be after Dec. 19 — and the business is openly inviting exactly that kind of send-off.
Photo: Bernard Dupont, CC BY-SA 2.0