San Diego-based Modern Times Beer has announced the impending closure of half its locations.
"As of the end of this week, we will be closing our Portland, Oakland, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles locations," read a post on Modern Times Beer's Instagram page. "It is a surreal and painful turn of events for us, and we realize that the suddenness of it puts many people we care about in very difficult positions."
The team at San Diego's Modern Times Beer has on an aggressive growth path since founder Jacob McKean started the company in Point Loma in 2013. In addition to being California's first employee-owned brewery, the craft brewery expanded greatly in its nine year tenure, including opening a North Park tasting room dubbed the Flavordome, a downtown Los Angeles restaurant and tasting room named The Dankness Dojo, a tasting room and restaurant in Encinitas named 'The Far West Lounge', a full brewery operation in Portland, Oregon named 'The Belmont Fermentorium', the Invigatorium coffee shop in San Diego's East Village in partnership with Consortium Holdings, the Modern Times Academy of Recreational Sciences tasting room and restaurant in Santa Barbara, The House of Perpetual Refreshment in Oakland, and a 33,000 square-foot Leisuretown project in Anaheim, CA. All of this is in addition to operating the company's original brewery and coffee shop in Point Loma, which was in the process of being expanded into neighboring buildings to add a restaurant before COVID-19 took the world by storm. In spring 2021, the founder of San Diego's Modern Times Beer Jacon McKean issued a public apology and announced he resigned as CEO following continued revelations detailing allegations of harassment and discrimination against members of the craft beer industry.
"We wish that there were another way to resolve the financial issues we now face, but we have been put in a position - by the pandemic and global declines in the craft beer industry - from which this tremendously difficult path is the only way forward for us," continued Modern Times' announcement. "While it is a path that we feel will lead to a renewed vision and new life for Modern Times, it doesn’t make taking these drastic measures any less heartbreaking. An instagram caption doesn’t seem like adequate space to go into great detail here, but we have prepared a statement on the closures and what’s next for MT, which you can read via our blog (link in bio). We know we’ve asked a lot of our friends and family within the last 2 years, but if we could ask just one more thing, it would be that you pay some of your favorite beer enthusiasts a last visit this week."
In January 2022, Modern Times announced its new CEO, Jennifer Briggs, formerly of New Belgium Brewing. Modern Times will continue operating its main production facility and taproom in Point Loma, as well as locations in North Park, Encinitas and Anaheim. Modern Times continues to operated under an Employee Stock Ownership Program where its workers currently own 30% of the company’s equity. Former CEO and Founder Jacob McKean remains the company's majority owner.
For more information about Modern Times and the impending closures, visit moderntimesbeer.com/blog/hard-decisions-and-the-path-forward.
