For the second time in about a year, a brewery near Franklin’s gateway has closed.
Wooden Bear Brewing, which opened its doors in March after extensive renovations to the building at 157 Holiday Place, is permanently closed.
“Yes, unfortunately, Wooden Bear has closed. Sales weren’t where we needed it to be,” owner Brent Sandquist said in written responses to questions.
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Wooden Bear moved into the former home of Hoosier Brewhouse, which closed in 2018 and relocated to Greenwood. The Franklin building sits off King Street, just west of the Interstate 65 interchange. Owners said the location of the building and area construction caused a significant decline in sales.
Wooden Bear did a complete overhaul of the building, which the owners paid for themselves.
“We did a complete overhaul, from top to bottom. I joke with people that the only thing we kept was a few of those black barstools and the ‘open’ sign,” former operations manager Mike Williams said in March.
The brewery opened in Greenfield in 2013, and added a taproom in the Geist area in 2017. In late 2018, the owners announced they were expanding to Franklin. Wooden Bear’s owners have ties to Franklin, as two of them are Franklin College alumni.
The new location would be in the former Hoosier Brewhouse, an eatery and taproom of Hoosier Brewing Co. The brewhouse closed in July 2018, two years after it received significant funding from the city to get the business off the ground and renovate and repair the old building.
Now, Sandquist says they actually relocated the Geist taproom to Franklin, and only the Greenfield brewing operations remain.
The owners announced Aug. 27 on social media that Wooden Bear would be closed temporarily to re-evaluate the way they deliver goods and services to their customers, according to the post. They were planning to be closed for two weeks, the post said.
They asked for taxpayer incentives, but the city said no, Mayor Steve Barnett said.
“We don’t typically don’t go back and give more incentives to a location that has already received incentives,” Barnett said.
He suspects the location is also to blame for this closure, he said.
“I know there’s something that can work there, but maybe it’s not the best spot for a brewery,” Barnett said. “I think it’ll be better once we get those hotels open.”
Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Franklin, an $8 million, 81-room hotel that recently opened at 350 Paris Drive, is the result of 15 years of discussions about how to revitalize the city’s gateway. Construction of a second hotel in the same area, a $13.6 million, 92-room Hampton Inn & Suites off Paris Drive, behind Burger King, started last October. Hampton Inn & Suites is slated to open next spring.
“Hopefully we can find the right business to go in there. I know the entry to the brewery was a little tricky,” Barnett said.
Wooden Bear shared the building with its landlord, David Rae Development. Trent Petro, the owner of the building, could not be reached for comment.
