Less than three years after it opened a giant new facility in Mission Bay, Seven Stills Brewery and Distillery announced that it will close its doors as of Sunday, Oct. 30.
“Timing is everything, and we were unfortunately hit with some of the worst timing possible,” cofounder and CEO Tim Obert said in an email Wednesday.
The Mission Bay location, a 22,000-square-foot operation near Chase Center that functioned as a brewery, distillery, cocktail bar and restaurant, cost more than three times its initial estimate, Obert’s email stated. This put the company on unsure financial footing heading into the Covid pandemic.
Having opened in 2012 as a taproom in the Bayview that Obert built with his cofounder Clint Potter, Seven Stills rapidly expanded, taking over the former Almanac Beer Co. space on 24th Street in the Mission.
Both of those locations have since closed, as did a third location on Lawton Street in the Outer Sunset. Over its 10-year life, the brewery and distillery endured a number of other setbacks and was no stranger to controversy.
The 2020 shelter-in-place order spurred a pivot to manufacturing hand sanitizer, and Seven Stills shut down and reopened several times over the next few years, at one point losing its alcohol license for 90 days because of numerous in-house Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) violations.
Some of its beer labels played off well-known trademarks like In-N-Out or Swedish Fish, leading to at least one cease-and-desist order. But massive supply-chain issues this year appear to be a shock the company was unable to absorb. Seven Stills’ last day of operation is this Sunday, and the company is selling Watermelon Seltzer, Apricot Wheat beer and various other offerings for $20 a case until then.
100 Hooper St.