USA, IL: Chicago’s Metropolitan Brewing permanently closing in December

Metropolitan Brewing is permanently closing, the Block Club Chicago reported on November 14.

The beloved Chicago brewery and taproom will close after service on Dec. 17, owners Doug and Tracy Hurst announced on social media on November 14. The taproom along the Chicago River will be open its normal hours every day until then except for Thanksgiving, the owners said.

Metropolitan’s closure comes after nearly 15 years in business and follows a last-ditch effort to save the brewery from mounting financial trouble.

The Hursts filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to unsustainable debt, a years-long rent dispute and “tepid” retail sales, the Tribune reported last month. They’d hoped the move would help the business “reorganize” and “right our ship,” they wrote.

But the owners said on November 14 they were unable to solve their “differences with our landlord,” forcing them to close. They have no plans to revive the business elsewhere once they shut down, they wrote.

“We are grateful for every soul that passed through our doors, both on Ravenswood and on Rockwell,” the owners wrote on Facebook. “And we are deeply sorry that we couldn’t see our way through this current situation. We tried. For years. But now it’s time to turn toward new adventures.”

Founded in 2009, Metropolitan Brewing, 3057 N. Rockwell St., is one of Chicago’s oldest craft breweries, known for its seasonal German-style beers.

Metropolitan initially opened in Ravenswood. By 2013, the company started looking for a bigger space to brew larger quantities of its craft beer to keep up with demand.

The Hursts moved into the Rockwell on the River space in 2017. Landlord Paul Levy retrofitted the 1880s tannery next to the Chicago River into a campus for artisans and food makers.

The Hursts began disputing their rent in late 2019, after years of trying to figure out why the brewery was struggling to cover the rent despite strong sales, Tracy Hurst previously told Block Club.

They’d discovered the lease they’d negotiated was for about 24,000 square feet, but the lease they were given to sign was for about 33,000 square feet, Tracy Hurst said.

After the Hursts withheld rent payments, saying they’d been overcharged for space the brewery doesn’t occupy, Levy moved to evict the brewery in late 2020. The Hursts countersued in 2021, accusing the landlord of improperly inflating the square footage in their lease, the Tribune reported.

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