Shuttered Dogtown Brewing space in Manchester to be reborn as Bolo’s Eatery

From left: CM Bryant, Darryl Puller, Mike Lindsey and Kimberly Love-Lindsey. (Mike Platania photo)

A long-dormant Manchester brewery building is set to be revived by a team of local restaurateurs and beer makers.

Lindsey Food Group and Brainstorm Brewhouse have signed a lease to take over the former Dogtown Brewing Co. space at 1209 Hull St. and bring in a new concept: Bolo’s Eatery.

It’ll be a brewpub serving beer made on-site, along with fried chicken, oysters and more across the building’s three levels and rooftop deck. 

Lindsey Food Group, run by husband-and-wife Mike Lindsey and Kimberly Love-Lindsey, has opened around a dozen restaurants in the region since its founding in 2020, including Lillie Pearl, Buttermilk and Honey, and Farm + Oak. Brainstorm, meanwhile, is led by Darryl Puller and CM Bryant, two local beer industry veterans who opened the brewery within Black Heath Meadery’s space in Scott’s Addition last year. 

The Lindseys have grown their portfolio primarily by taking over vacant, turnkey restaurant spaces, and 1209 Hull St. fit the bill. Dogtown made its debut in the summer of 2019 but closed less than a year later amid both the pandemic and legal troubles surrounding embattled owner Michael Hild. 

Hild’s other neighboring businesses, Butterbean Market and Hot Diggity Donuts, also went dark around the same time.

Dogtown Brewing Co. had been open less than a year before it closed. (Photos courtesy Mindie Ballard)

Mike Lindsey said he kept his eye on the Hild storefronts, particularly the Dogtown space, since 2022 when his company opened Jubilee, a restaurant on the neighboring 1300 block of Hull Street that closed last year. 

“I’ve been on it since then. I was like, ‘When this block comes back, it’s going to be great for the Blackwell and Manchester area.’ They are the nicest and cleanest restaurants on this block, and then I saw how nice the rooftop was (at Dogtown),” Lindsey said. “So I put my feelers out to a bunch of different people and I was like, ‘As soon as this thing hits the market, let me know.’ I was one of the first people to look at it.”

Lindsey got his chance when Virginia Credit Union, Hild’s main lender, won court approval last year to take control of the Dogtown building and other nearby Hild-controlled properties and put them up for lease.

When Lindsey called Puller and Bryant at Brainstorm to ask if they wanted to team up for the Hull Street spot, they said they jumped on it. While they credit Black Heath owner Bill Cavender for helping them get the brewery off the ground, they said they’d been looking for a potential move. 

“It was one of those perfect stars-aligned situations,” Puller said. “We had actually looked at this place, just walking by like, ‘Man this would be crazy to have.’ Then Mike hit me up and I was like, ‘Man, this is almost too good to be true.’ … These types of opportunities don’t happen.”

The building’s rooftop deck offers views of the Manchester and Blackwell areas.

Bolo’s will have a food menu built around fried chicken and oysters, while also serving burgers, fish and chips, shrimp and grits and more. The Lindseys have experience with fried chicken with their Buttermilk and Honey concept, which has two locations. The new eatery carries a nickname of Lindsey’s father, whom he described as “just a dude that loves fried chicken.”

“(But) what he loves more than anything is oysters, and this is already set up and built for that,” Lindsey said, referring to the fact that Hild built the Dogtown space to serve oysters from one of his other companies, Anderson’s Neck Oyster Co. “It’s going to be fried chicken, oysters and craft beer. … Nothing too prestigious. For me, it’s really about making it that neighborhood spot.”

On the beer side, Puller and Bryant will be bringing over many of their brews from Brainstorm, including the Chocolate Lager, which they said is one of their most popular brews. 

Brainstorm has been using a three-barrel brewing rig at Black Heath and will be able to quintuple the output with the 15-barrel system left intact from Dogtown. Puller said he’s looking forward to having more capacity. 

“I want to focus on the lager program and keep the IPAs going, and then play with some classic styles; bring back the dunkels, do an amber lager and a red ale,” Puller said. 

Decades ago, the space at 1209 Hull St. was a Thalhimer’s department store.

In addition to the beer, Brainstorm is also planning to make its own ciders and seltzers, which Bryant will oversee. 

“Cider is something I was always passionate about and used to brew a lot, and I’ve just had a break. But I want to get back into it, so we’re going to see what we can do around here,” Bryant said. “I know we’ve got to do some seltzers because there’s a lot of imaginative things you could do there.”

Lindsey said Bolo’s is also planning to offer wine and spirits. 

Brainstorm will continue to operate in Scott’s Addition in the near term, but Bryant and Puller said they anticipate they’ll eventually close there to fully focus on Bolo’s. 

The 4,800-square-foot Dogtown space sat largely untouched since the brewery closed in early 2020 until last year, when it was put back on the market. Lindsey said the space mostly just needs to be cleaned and redecorated as the owners aim for a September opening. 

The Bolo’s team was represented in its lease by Sperity Real Estate Ventures’ Nathan Hughes. One South Commercial’s Chris Corrada and Ann Schweitzer Riley represented Virginia Credit Union as the landlord.

The Bolo’s lease marks a successful turnaround for the three main commercial spaces Virginia Credit Union took back from Hild. A Montana-based brunch spot, Sassy’s, is taking over the former Butterbean storefront at 1204 Hull St., while local bakery Scharolina’s Custom Cakes signed for the old Hot Diggity space at 1213 Hull St. 

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