Building owner Greg Schirf told KPCW the original Wasatch Brewpub is under contract to be sold to a New York investor as of April 28.
The deal will close within 60 days. Schirf declined to disclose the name of the buyer or purchase price.
According to employees of Schirf’s tenant, known as Top of Main since 2023, the new owners bought out and terminated their lease.
The business and all its equipment has to be moved by the end of July, Schirf said. Top of Main will still produce beer for a short time before then.
“It was fun, but everything runs its course,” Schirf said in an interview. “And of course, the beer industry changed monumentally.”
Schirf, 73, sold his stake in Wasatch Brewery — which merged with Squatters Craft Beers in 2000 — more than a decade ago. Top of Main was his last real estate connection to the beer business.
He founded Wasatch Brewery in 1986 in Park City’s Iron Horse District, but state law wouldn’t allow a tap room or bar. When he proposed changing that, Schirf said people thought he was crazy.
“As an old hippie, when you tell somebody you can't do it, that's the motivation right there,” Schirf said.
Park City’s state legislator was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who wasn’t comfortable sponsoring a permissive liquor bill.
So Schirf found a bill sponsor down in Price, Utah: a Greek orthodox Catholic named Mike Dmitrich. And in 1988, it passed. Breweries would be allowed to sell their product on site.
Wasatch Brewpub opened in 1989, a month before the first Squatters.
“Years later, [Dmitrich] said, ‘Greg, Greg, these brew pubs are everywhere! What's going on?’ He goes, ‘Shouldn't we be getting some kind of royalty?’” Schirf recalls.
Park City Municipal hoped its new brewpub would revive Main Street. Schirf remembers “half the establishments were boarded up.”
He said then-Park City Manager Arlene Loble wanted something on the municipal land at the top of Main and had offered him a deal if he agreed to build it.
“She said to me: get an appraisal from an established, reputable appraiser, and you can buy it from the city for half that appraised value,” Schirf said.
The resulting building, now painted a bright blue, is tailor-made for brewing and food service. It features a grain silo built into the brewhouse ceiling, large walk-in coolers and other specialty equipment.
The Summit County assessor estimates the land and building at 250 Main Street is worth $6.5 million.
Schirf isn’t sure what the new owners will do with the place.
“The brewpub had a home. And locals were very generous supporting it,” he said. “Every kid, seems like, had to do his time at the brew pub as a busser.”
Schirf adds that the business wouldn’t have survived were it not for the members of the local Latino community it employed.
It supported community organizations over the years too. There used to be no Park City glass recycling, leading one of Schirf’s employees, Scott Becker, to help found Recycle Utah.
In the present day, Top of Main has partnered with the nonprofit land trust Summit Land Conservancy to brew Hop Bandit, now the Clothing Hoptional ale, with wild hops.
Wasatch and Squatters have a tradition of clever or, more often, irreverent brew names: Polygamy Porter, 1st Amendment Lager and St. Provo Girl Pilsner, to name a few.
Some of the beer now made under the Top of Main umbrella is also brewed at the original Squatters on Broadway in Salt Lake City. But the bulk of production was in Park City.
Top of Main’s bar and dining room closed for Park City’s shoulder season and now will not reopen. Employees are looking for work elsewhere.
It will be the second Main Street institution departing this year. Main Street Pizza & Noodle closed April 5 after a 35-year run, citing rising rent.
