Scottish-headquartered craft brewer BrewDog has shuttered its pub in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, marking its second U.S. pub closure in less than a year.
The Pittsburgh taproom employed nine workers, who were offered jobs at other BrewDog sites and relocation fees. BrewDog USA CEO Jason Block declined to share how many accepted those offers “out of privacy and respect for their individual decisions” in a statement shared with Brewbound via a spokesperson.
“We opened Pittsburgh two weeks before the pandemic, which had such a devastating impact on our entire industry and meant we were not able to get the bar up and running as we have done in other locations,” Block said. “This was compounded by the considerable inflationary and supply chain challenges over the past year which made operating that location unsustainable.”
In addition to the Pittsburgh location, BrewDog also closed three bars in the United Kingdom – Leicester, Brixton and Clapham, BrewDog co-founder and CEO James Watt shared in a LinkedIn post. Despite these closures, the company plans to open eight new bars in 2023, seven of which are listed on BrewDog’s “coming soon” page.
“Closing bars that we love is always difficult,” Watt wrote. “However, the increased cost of goods and run-away energy bills mean that we can’t continue to operate these venues.”
In the same LinkedIn post, Watt announced the end of a profit-sharing program launched last year to reward bar staff. The program allocated 50% of bar profits to staff; however, BrewDog’s pubs were affected by the energy crisis that swept Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Costs spiralled and the economic situation deteriorated badly,” Watt wrote. “Put bluntly, there is not much point sharing 50% of bar profits if there is little or no profit to share.”
In its place, BrewDog has instituted an incentive program that pays employees $1 (or £1) more per hour for all hours worked in months when the bar achieved customer service quality goals. The program, dubbed “Customer Champions,” also includes 10% profit sharing.
“More team members will realize bonuses under the updated program,” Block said, adding that the changes were “requested” by staff.
BrewDog bar staff in the U.S. work on “a predominantly tipped-wage-based system,” making it “hard to compare like-for-like with the system in the UK,” Block said. After bonuses and extra pay for beer certifications, British staff earn £13.50 per hour in London and £12.45 per hour outside the city, Watt noted on LinkedIn.
Last year, BrewDog expanded U.S. hospitality operations to include bars in Atlanta and Las Vegas, which have been successful, Block said.
“Las Vegas and Atlanta have been transformative to our business,” he added. ”The positive and enthusiastic reception from those communities has exceeded our expectations.”
Later this year, BrewDog will partner with franchise owner Juan Carlos Mondragon to open a trio of bars in the Denver area. The first is planned for the city’s River North neighborhood.
Other BrewDog USA locations are centered in Ohio (Cincinnati, Cleveland, New Albany, Canal Winchester and two in Columbus).
BrewDog, which Watt and co-founder Martin Dickie started in 2007 in Scotland, has drawn criticism from industry watchdogs and worker advocates in recent years, beginning in June 2021 when a group of former employees called Punks with Purpose wrote an open letter calling out what they deemed was “a culture of fear” in the wake of the broader craft beer industry’s reckoning with sexism and harassment in its ranks.
The BBC detailed several BrewDog-related scandals in a January 2022 documentary, including alleged inappropriate behavior toward female employees and guests during Watt’s visits to U.S. bars. In response, Watt called the allegations “totally false” and said those about his “inappropriate behaviour” were “the most upsetting and damaging.”
“I hugely regret anyone feeling in anyway uncomfortable around me, as the programme set out,” he said at the time. “This is absolutely the last thing I want and something I will learn from immediately. I truly apologise to anyone who felt this way. This was never my intention.”
In April 2022, BrewDog USA shuttered its Indianapolis bar, which opened in September 2019 and marked the first time the company expanded its hospitality ventures beyond its U.S. homebase of Ohio. That taproom came under scrutiny in March 2021 when a manager terminated three women and one non-binary person. All four belonged to the LGBTQ community and were told they were being dismissed because the company “wanted a change in culture.” After an internal investigation, BrewDog USA also terminated the manager who approved the firing.
Late last year, BrewDog claimed it decided to “step aside” from its B Corp certification from B Lab, the organization that certifies companies that meet “high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials.” In conflicting statements to Eater, one spokesperson said BrewDog opted to relinquish certification after being suspended and offered a remediation plan, but another spokesperson said the organization does not comment on companies that leave its community.