Buoy Beer

Buoy Beer Co. plans to close its Food Hub location at the end of the year, moving operations to a taproom off Duane Street and indefinitely suspending food service.

The brewery moved into the Food Hub on Marine Drive following the partial collapse of its old restaurant into the Columbia River in June 2022. The lease is up at the end of the year, and the company’s leadership came to the decision not to renew it, according to David Kroening, the company’s president.

“The Food Hub, they’ve been great,” Kroening said. “They were very helpful in getting open a week after the building had its issue and (it) was a good temporary space. But it was always that: a temporary space until we figured things out.”

Buoy Beer will continue to operate its taproom downtown at the old Reach Break location, which opened in August. Pilot House Distilling will also move its tasting room operations to the new location. Beginning in October, the taproom will be open seven days a week.

That location, which has four food trucks on site, will serve drinks only. Buoy Beer is open to other potential locations for resuming food service in the future, Kroening said, but nothing has penciled out yet.

“We’re open to it,” he said. “We’ve been looking, over the last year, at different spaces, and just haven’t found anything that meets our needs and is the right opportunity for us yet. It’s hard because the original location is nearly impossible to replace for all the things it provided and whatnot, and the super unique location.”

The Food Hub location will have reduced hours for the remainder of the year in light of an anticipated seasonal slowdown and to allow the company time to transition. Beginning in October, the restaurant will be open only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

“We didn’t want to just close the doors abruptly,” Kroening said of the reduced hours. “Obviously, we’ve got a lot of awesome team members and people who have been with us for a while … (We wanted to) provide the food service and full restaurant experience as long as we can, but in a way that makes it a little more manageable here going through the end of the year.”