Kindred Spirit’s Satellite taproom closing after a year in business

The brewery opened last spring. (Mike Platania photo)

A Goochland brewery’s satellite location is exiting the city’s orbit.

Kindred Spirit Brewing’s Satellite taproom at 1626 Ownby Lane is closing this weekend.

Its last day will be May 18, about a year after it opened as a space-themed offshoot of Kindred Spirit’s original location in Goochland’s West Creek. 

John Barefoot, who co-owns Kindred Spirit with his wife, Heather, and Joe Trottier and Merryl Gutierrez, said Satellite was doing well, but running two locations was stretching them thin.

“We were brewing at both locations, we were staffing for both locations, and booking bands for both locations. We were finding ourselves working way too much,” John Barefoot said. “The juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.”

Kindred Spirit will continue operating in West Creek as usual. 

Heather and John Barefoot at Satellite.

John Barefoot said the opportunity to open Satellite came about through an existing relationship with the Ownby Lane building’s owner, downtown’s Crenshaw-Singleton Properties, which also owns Kindred Spirit’s Goochland building. That familiarity also made this week’s closure a little easier. 

“We had an agreement to have a run at that spot. They were nice to let us out with a flexible lease agreement,” John Barefoot said. 

The opportunity to take over the 5,600-square-foot Ownby space came in late 2023 when Castleburg Brewery and Taproom closed after eight years in business. The space is flanked by two other breweries in the vicinity: Hardywood Park Craft Brewery’s original location at 2410 Ownby Lane and Main Line Brewery at 1603 Ownby Lane. 

Satellite’s closure comes at a time of churn for the local craft beer industry over the past year or two. More local breweries closed last year than in any year since the industry boom began in the 2010s. Just last week Anytime Beer Co., formerly Tabol Brewing, closed in Northside, though its owners say they are planning to find a new location. 

John Barefoot said Kindred Spirit is doing well overall, particularly through distribution. The brewery’s beer is shipped all over the state and into parts of North Carolina, a line of business Barefoot credits to Kindred Spirit’s relatively early arrival on the scene in 2016.

“Being one of the earlier people in the market certainly helped. It allowed us to get distribution rights through some key distributors, whereas it’d be tough to even get in with a distributor (now) because they’re so packed with brands,” he said. 

Across the street from Satellite is a major construction site, as Tennessee-developer Mid-America Apartment Communities is building a five-story, 300-plus-unit complex at the corner of Hermitage and Ownby. 

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