{"id":120546,"date":"2026-02-22T13:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T13:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/120546\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T13:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T13:49:14","slug":"tired-hands-shifts-ardmore-brewing-co-to-private-event-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/120546\/","title":{"rendered":"Tired Hands shifts Ardmore Brewing Co. to private event space"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tired Hands Brewing\u2019s Ardmore<\/a> Brewing Company brewpub has been turned into a private event space, for now, as its owner navigates the future of the beer company. <\/p>\n

Tired Hands\u2019 Kennett Square<\/a> taproom and bottle shop is permanently closed, owner Jean Broillet confirmed to The Inquirer on Thursday. Tired Hands\u2019 Beer<\/a> Park in Newtown Square<\/a> also will not reopen this summer as the property\u2019s owners are looking to redevelop it, Broillet said. <\/p>\n

Tired Hands\u2019 Ardmore Fermentaria and Fishtown restaurant St. Oner\u2019s<\/a> remain open for business. The brewing company\u2019s MT. Airy Biergarten is a seasonal operation that will reopen in the spring. <\/p>\n

Broillet said the decision to shift to private events at the Ardmore Brewing Company location was born out of a number of factors: having two Tired Hands locations in Ardmore was confusing for customers; ongoing construction in Ardmore created a \u201cprohibitive environment\u201d for doing business; and the changing landscape of brewing has prompted Tired Hands to begin reimagining parts of its business model. <\/p>\n

The changing face of Ardmore, and of Tired Hands<\/p>\n

When Broillet opened the first Tired Hands location, the BrewCaf\u00e9, in 2012<\/a>, he said there was little by way of interesting, high-quality food and drink in Ardmore. At the time, he said, Tired Hands\u2019 craft beer and artisan meats and cheeses stood in stark contrast to the Wawas and Irish pubs the area was accustomed to. Now, that era is a distant memory as Ardmore blossoms as a culinary destination on the Main Line<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Ardmore \u201cwent from zero to 60 really quickly in terms\u201d of dining and entertainment options, said Broillet. He added that Tired Hands was a catalyst for that progress. <\/p>\n

In 2015, Broillet and his business partner and wife Julie Foster opened the Fermentaria<\/a> at 35 Cricket Terrace, just blocks from Tired Hands\u2019 first location at 16 Ardmore Ave. <\/p>\n

The Fermentaria was a major expansion for Tired Hands. It offered food options that extended beyond the BrewCaf\u00e9\u2018s sandwich-and-salad-based menu, like steak frites and baby back ribs. It also quadrupled Tired Hands\u2019 production capacity. At the BrewCaf\u00e9, Tired Hands\u2019 brewers were able to produce 1,000 barrels of beer annually. At the time of its opening<\/a>, Broillet anticipated the Fermentaria would increase production to 4,000 barrels per year. <\/p>\n

Tired Hands opened St. Oner\u2019s<\/a>, a Fishtown restaurant and brewpub, in 2020. <\/p>\n

In the years that followed, Tired Hands opened the seasonal Biergarten in Mount Airy, the Kennett Square taproom, and the Beer Park in Newtown Square. <\/p>\n

In 2021, Broillet stepped down from daily operations after allegations of sexism and racism at Tired Hands proliferated<\/a> on social media, including claims that women were held to different standards than their male counterparts and employees were berated or publicly humiliated for mistakes. Broillet returned to his post at the helm of Tired Hands<\/a> a year later. <\/p>\n

Broillet said that \u201clots of valuable lessons, worldly lessons, were learned during that process\u201d and that Tired Hands is doing everything it can to \u201cprevent that from ever happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Changes in Ardmore, closure in Kennett Square<\/p>\n

While opening a second Ardmore outpost helped grow Tired Hands\u2019 footprint on the Main Line, having \u201ctwo of the same company\u201d also made things \u201cpretty confusing for people,\u201d Broillet said. <\/p>\n

In efforts to iron out the confusion, Tired Hands rebranded its BrewCaf\u00e9<\/a> last spring, renaming it the Ardmore Brewing Company, upgrading its interior, and adding more food and cocktail options while cutting down its beer list. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe confusion was still there,\u201d Broillet said. <\/p>\n

Broillet also brought on a culinary team that had extensive experience with private events. They began to host a handful of events at the brewery \u2014 retirement parties, birthdays, etc. \u2014 which were a success. <\/p>\n

At the same time, major construction had created a \u201cprohibitive environment for us to do business here on Ardmore Avenue,\u201d Broillet said. Construction on the mixed-use Piazza project<\/a> and Ardmore Avenue Community Center<\/a> are ongoing, both of which are proximate to Ardmore Avenue and the businesses that operate there. <\/p>\n

The brewery shifted to exclusively hosting private events in the last few months, a decision Broillet said he \u201ccouldn\u2019t be happier\u201d with. <\/p>\n

The brewery owner said the Ardmore Avenue location will be open to the public again in the future, but did not specify in what form. <\/p>\n

The taproom and bottle shop in Kennett Square will not reopen. <\/p>\n

Broillet said he opened a Tired Hands outpost in Kennett Square, in part, to have a presence near his family members who lived there. Though it was a \u201cfun\u201d chapter, Broillet said it no longer made sense to operate in Kennett Square, where Tired Hands already has a strong network of distributors that can get their beers into people\u2019s hands without making them trek to the bottle shop. <\/p>\n

What comes next? <\/p>\n

Broillet offered assurances that Ardmore Brewing Company will open up to the public again, but said the specifics aren\u2019t clear yet. Tired Hands also plans on expanding its Mount Airy footprint with a permanent restaurant space. <\/p>\n

For brewers across the country, the specter of people drinking less alcohol looms large. Sales of craft beer fell 4% in 2024<\/a>, and there were more brewery closings than openings in late 2024 and early 2025, the first time in 20 years such a phenomenon had occurred. Brewerytown\u2019s Crime & Punishment Brewing shuttered last April<\/a>, with its owners citing a shifting culture around alcohol among the reasons for its closure. Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, a Philly-area craft brewing pioneer, abruptly shuttered all of its locations<\/a> in September. <\/p>\n

Broillet said that while the changing dynamics of the industry remain on his mind, Tired Hands was not \u201cacutely a victim of that downturn.\u201d Sales had been down slightly over the past few years, but Broillet attributes that more to having two locations in Ardmore than to the state of the industry. He\u2019s bullish about Tired Hands\u2019 ability to distinguish itself and sees excitement in the changes. <\/p>\n

\u201cThose sentiments have a way of just propelling you forward,\u201d Broillet said. <\/p>\n

This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer\u2019s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com\/donate<\/a>. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org\/supporters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tired Hands Brewing\u2019s Ardmore Brewing Company brewpub has been turned into a private event space, for now, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,56937],"class_list":{"0":"post-120546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-pennsylvania","9":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","10":"tag-pennsylvania-news","11":"tag-tired-hands-ardmore-brewing-company"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}