Following a fire last fall and abundant allegations of impropriety against its owner, Hamilton's Tavern has confirmed it will not be reopening.
Hamilton's Tavern was founded in 2006 and was long known as one of San Diego's original craft beer bars. Ownership opened South Park Brewing Company in the neighboring space in 2014. Last November, a fire that broke out that caused an more than $1 million damage to Hamilton's Tavern and South Park Brewing Company. Both concepts are owned by Scot Donovan Blair, who was outspoken about his opposition to the forced shutdowns during the COVID-19 era and was named several times in damning accusations on Brienne Allan's viral @RatMagnet Instagram posts that took the craft beer industry by storm earlier this year."Since November 2020, it's continued to be an uphill challenge, yet we remained hopeful," read the post announcing the closure on Hamilton's Tavern's Instagram page posted on July 4, 2021. "Unfortunately, this week it became painfully apparent that with the level of damage sustained and the age of the building, we really couldn't be back online anytime before the middle of 2022 or longer, We had anticipated this might be a problem in January but now it's confirmed. We were reflecting on the past 15 years and evaluating options to stick it out or relocate and both offer several other unique and lenghty challenges. So after much deliberation, we decided that both of these solutions are untenable."
