After closing for the winter, the Worcester Beer Garden and Taproom will finally reopen, Friday, June 7.
“We can’t wait to welcome you back,” a notice posted at 64 Franklin St., reads.
Executive Vice President Joseph Donovan of Grid Management, the Worcester Beer Garden’s owner, told MassLive earlier this year that 2023 had not been the year they had hoped for as weather had a significant impact.
“It’s a case where it wasn’t financially sustainable to keep the beer garden open for the winter with just the taproom and the pavilion open,” said Donovan. The bear garden closed Oct. 30, 2023.
Donovan said Grid Management followed suit with previous years to close the beer garden for the winter. The decision also came after a turnover in management, leading to a need to restaff ahead of spring.
Previously, the restaurant’s liquor license was suspended by the Worcester License Commission after the departing manager failed to complete a week’s worth of crowd management safety checks.
The then-general manager left in the summer of 2023, Donovan told MassLive.
Crowd safety checks had not been logged for several days and the liquor license expired.
During a visit from Worcester Police Officer Patrick Harrington in September, the then-manager showed the officer a wall with the restaurant’s licenses, revealing the liquor license was in fact expired, Donovan said.
The penalty was a five-day suspension with three to be served in November.
In January, Donovan said plans for the beer garden to revitalize the space into something that’s open all year and hope to find a potential partner.
“When we imagined what the reopening would look like, we thought, ‘OK, rather than do the same thing again next year [and] go through the hiring process, bring in a management team, let’s take this time to explore strategic options,” Donovan said.
“What other strategic options are there? Where we are at now is the opportunity to either partner with someone or bring in an experienced retail operator to run the beer garden for us.”
Donovan did not respond to MassLive’s inquires regarding the changes.
