Toronto neighbourhood brewery issues candid note as it closes permanently
A Toronto brewery that's been a summertime staple in its neighbourhood for years has closed permanently.
As someone who spent the first quarter-century of my life living in The Beach(es), I've seen firsthand just how hard it can be for restaurants to stay alive along the Queen East strip.
Yes, members of the neighbourhood ride hard for their local businesses, and a handful have managed to stand the test of time, but when a small window of summertime business accounts for a large majority of the area's foot traffic, it's difficult to make it work.
The latest neighbourhood casualty was something of a local success story, having been in business for the past six years, but hey, all good things must come to an end, right?
As of Wednesday, Dec. 3, Beaches Brewing Co. has closed permanently.
In the wake of the closure, owner Carl Pratt published a lengthy letter explaining his decision to shutter the brewery that cites, among other frequently felt industry pains, the utter lack of business he'd see during the fall and winter months.
"There are a lot of things that I won't miss," Pratt writes in the letter.
"Specifically, I won't miss the 7 months of the year where there are no people. Saturday at 6PM and not a soul in sight, it makes you think that everything you're doing is wrong and that everyone hates your ideas."
Of course, that's not the case: Beaches Brewing Co. was a local institution in its own right — the brewery even teamed up with local band The Beaches to create a collaborative beer for the group's hometown shows at History — but money talks, even when what it says doesn't paint the whole picture.
In the letter, Pratt calls a "lack of revenue" the primary reason behind the closure, and admits that the business had been up for sale since the winter of 2024 — "Yes, it's been brewing (no pun intended) that long."
Still, despite the challenges, Pratt admits that there's plenty to be proud of when it comes to Beaches Brewing Co.
"I will always be proud of the product that we produced," Pratt writes.
"We were a place that valued substance over style and was a little less generic than most pubs on the street, and certainly one of the few places you could get real craft beer in the Beach. I say, without doubt, that you could not get a better meal at a better price point in this neighbourhood. It was always our goal to have the best value proposition in the Beach, and I think we achieved that."
Beaches Brewing Co. was formerly located at 1953 Queen St. E.
Fareen Karim
