Where Downtown Southern Pines Goes for a Pint Now That the Old Breweries Are Gone

"We're really trying to bring something there that would actually make people want to continue walking down there because there's something worth walking to," Joseph Druther told The Pilot about the building at Southwest Broad Street and West Illinois Avenue. For six years, Hatchet Brewing Company gave people that reason to walk down. Now the corner is waiting for a new tenant.

The empty corner says something about downtown beer as a whole. Southern Pines still has places to get a good pint. As of the latest reporting, though, nobody has reopened a brewery in town. The taproom that opened downtown this year is an outpost of an Aberdeen brewery, and the other main spot is a beer bar. The spots still going strong fill their weeknights with trivia, poker, bingo and dog costume contests, because they no longer have a brewhouse to offer.

What closed in December 2025

In December 2025, the Sandhills Sentinel reported "a wave of closures" across the Moore County craft beer scene. Two of them were in Southern Pines:

1. Southern Pines Brewing Company, after 11 years in business. It first closed its flagship taproom and production facility at 565 Air Tool Drive. Then it announced that all of its remaining locations would close, including the taproom at 205 W. Pennsylvania Ave.
2. Hatchet Brewing Company, which served its last day on Sunday, Dec. 28.

The Buggy Factory in Carthage, which Southern Pines Brewing ran in the historic Tyson and Jones Buggy Company building, also closed on Dec. 31.

Hatchet's own statement listed declining distribution, production setbacks, and a drop in retail sales during the government shutdown. It also pointed to rising costs for raw materials, equipment, utilities and labor, pressures it described as "impacting the brewing industry across the nation." Brewing was the expensive part. According to The Pilot, the Hatchet team planned to can and keg the beer it had ready and clean its equipment so it would be preserved. We haven't found any reporting since then that the equipment was sold or that the Hatchet name has come back.

205 W. Pennsylvania Ave. got a taproom, not a brewery

The downtown building where Southern Pines Brewing poured its beer is open again. It reopened on Memorial Day 2026 as Railhouse Brewery: Penn Station. Majority owner Chris Weber runs it as an expansion of Railhouse's flagship in Aberdeen. Weber's plans for the Southern Pines taproom included Railhouse beers, wine, cider and craft soda, along with rotating small-batch beer.

This building has changed hands before. According to the Sandhills Sentinel's opening coverage, the same building once housed both Southern Pines Brewing Company and the first location of Southern Pines Growler Company. So it's now on its third beer business.

Here's what Penn Station offers, based on its opening announcements:

• What's poured: Railhouse beers, wine, cider from James Creek Ciderhouse, and craft sodas. The brewery said a plan for liquor and a full bar "may present itself in the future." We haven't seen any reporting that it has added one.
• Food: The taproom invites you to bring takeout from nearby downtown restaurants and businesses.
• Who's welcome: It's pet- and family-friendly. On weekday evenings, the space is also available for community groups such as book clubs, church groups, moms' night out and club meetings.
• Hours at opening: Noon to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and noon to midnight Friday and Saturday. These were opening-week hours, and The Pilot noted they could change, so check before you go.

Railhouse said crews spent months cleaning, painting and decorating before the Memorial Day opening. One local touch is a mural by local artist Emma Hogan. The October calendar shows the format: Wednesday poker nights with games at 6 and 8 p.m., Thursday trivia at 7 p.m. hosted by 910Comedy, and live music from Eastwood and Faust on Friday, Oct. 23, from 7 to 10 p.m.

The Broad Street corner is still waiting for a tenant

Hatchet's old building, Broad Street Plaza, sold first. Joseph and Liz Druther, co-owners of Druther Homes, bought it for $2 million nearly six months after the brewery closed. The seller was an LLC tied to developers Dave Crisafulli and Mike Fields, who bought the property in 2014 for $745,000.

The Druthers plan to put their company's offices in the middle of the building. The space facing Broad Street and the Illinois Avenue intersection will go to a restaurant or another consumer-service business. Project manager Casey Burton told The Pilot that the office work would take three to four months. The full renovation won't start until a tenant is chosen, and that includes where a kitchen goes and how one gets built. "It can really, truly be reconfigured to whatever a tenant needs," Burton said.

The exterior renderings by Charlotte Morris of Morris House Design are conceptual. As of The Pilot's report, they hadn't been submitted to the town for approval. We haven't found any later reporting that names a tenant. Druther also said he hopes to bring community events back to the property. That's worth watching. Whoever takes the corner will be pitched on giving people a reason to walk to the south end of downtown, the same role Hatchet played.

The Growler Company is still pouring on New York Avenue

Southern Pines Growler Company has been the steady presence through all of this. It outgrew its first spot on West Pennsylvania Avenue, where The Pilot reported the shop often had no open tables. By July 2020 it had moved to the corner of New York Avenue and Bennett Street. The new building had four times as much space for indoor and outdoor seating, including a larger dog-friendly patio. Today it's listed at 160 W. New York Ave. as a beer bar and beer store.

The Growler's calendar shows the same approach as Penn Station's. Its 2026 Oktoberfest ran across three Saturdays: Sept. 19, Sept. 26 and Oct. 3. It poured German-style beers, and the Grill Me Up food truck handled food. The rest of October looks like this:

Howl-O-Ween has a set schedule. Registration opens at 5:30 p.m., the costume contest starts at 6, and Music Bingo follows at 7. Adoptable dogs will be on hand too. The Pines Times calendar, where many of these listings appear, warns that events can change. Check with the venue before a big night out.

Air Tool Drive and the kitchen coming to SW Broad

The old Southern Pines Brewing production site at 565 Air Tool Drive is less certain. Its former brewery suites were advertised for lease in January 2026, and the listing was later taken down. A pulled listing doesn't tell you whether the space was leased, sold or simply withdrawn. We haven't found any reporting of a new brewer moving in.

On the other end of downtown, Rec Room Bar & Arcade at 750 SW Broad St. is building a kitchen for hand-tossed pizza and wings. Owner Heather Dyer opened the bar in February 2023, and The Pilot says the kitchen could open "as early as November." That would add food to a spot near the Broad Street Plaza corner while the corner itself still waits on a tenant.

Next time someone asks where to get a pint downtown, the reliable answers are 205 W. Pennsylvania Ave. and 160 W. New York Ave. As of the latest reporting, no new brewery has opened in Southern Pines to replace the two that closed.

Downtown buildings like 205 W. Penn and Broad Street Plaza change hands in ways that shape what the next few blocks feel like, and following those stories is part of how Rhonda Edwards keeps up with Southern Pines. If you're curious what your own place near Broad Street or Pennsylvania Avenue might be worth as downtown changes around it, get your instant home valuation, and Rhonda is always glad to talk it through over a pint at Penn Station or the Growler.