Another Atlanta brewery is closing. Best End Brewing in the Lee + White mixed-use development will close permanently on Jan. 1.
“The business has been struggling for some time, and despite trying for a couple of years, we were unable to find a buyer who could secure the purchase to turn it around,” co-owner Rob Hayes wrote in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We were a young brand launched just before the pandemic and are suffering the brunt of a pullback affecting all of our local craft brewing industry.”
Chef Cory Burke, business partner Rob Hayes, brewer Tim Schiavone and general manager Valerie Albanese opened Best End in late 2019 at 1036 White St. SW in Atlanta’s West End. The team transformed the former warehouse space into a sprawling dining room that resembles a German beer hall with communal tables and a long beer bar.
Burke developed a menu of classic pub foods like chicken wings, burgers, sandwiches, pretzel bites and loaded tots, as well as a section of roti rolls topped with combinations like smoked Cajun chicken, shaved ribeye and grilled steak. Best End also offers a brunch menu on the weekend with such offerings as peach cobbler French toast, fried green tomatoes and shrimp and grits.
Schiavone led Best End’s brewery side with a rotating list of beers on tap including house specialties like American pilsner Anxiety Pils, hazy IPA Lack of Fokus and the holiday Belgian ale Fancy Christmas. The brewpub also offers cocktails and wine.
Best End was one of the early tenants to open in the Warehouse Row buildings at the intersection of Lee and White Streets, which Ackerman & CO. and MDH Partners acquired and began redeveloping in September 2019. The development now includes food and beverage concepts like Monday Night Garage, Wild Heaven Brewery, ASW Whiskey Exchange, Costa Coffee, Cielito Lindo Taqueria and Creme de la Crepe, Hop City and the Lee + White food hall.
Best End Brewing also houses vegan ice cream pop-up the Creamy Spot, which will be without a home following its final day of service on Dec. 31, owner Wendy Golding said in a text message. The Creamy Spot is set to move into a shipping container along the Beltline at the Pittsburgh Yards development, but the project has been delayed so Golding doesn’t know when her ice cream shop will reopen.
This is the third Atlanta brewery in the past four weeks to announce a closure. The others are Torched Hop Brewing in Midtown and Steady Hand Beer Co. in west Midtown. It rounds out two difficult years for Georgia breweries. There were a record number of closures in 2023 while 2024 marked the end of such metro Atlanta breweries as Elsewhere Brewing’s Grant Park and Westside Paper locations, Eventide Brewing in Grant Park, Kettlerock Brewing in Peachtree Corners, Iron Hill Brewery in Buckhead and Schoolhouse Brewing’s Emory Point location.
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