The long-vacant taproom at 2800 Woodburn Ave in East Walnut Hills has a new tenant lined up more than a year after its brewery shut its doors. Jen Ciolino, a former IT executive, has signed a five-year lease with options to extend for a concept called The Gardens, which is described as a first-of-its-kind tenant for the 4,196-square-foot building.
The building has sat empty since Woodburn Brewing closed in April 2025, according to Local 12 News. Nick Pesola of Pesola Advisors Group and Olivia Page of 3CRE co-represented both the landlord and Ciolino in the lease deal, the station reports. Exactly what The Gardens will serve or how it will use the space hasn't been detailed publicly yet.
A Brewery With a Complicated History
The building's brewing roots go back a decade. The space first opened in 2016 as The Woodburn Brewery before closing amid an internal dispute between its founding owner and head brewer, according to background compiled by MMA McKinney. Sycamore Township-based March First Manufacturing LLC then acquired the property, brewing equipment, and brand assets in December 2020 for an undisclosed price, reopening it in April 2021 as Woodburn Brewing with an Asian-inspired kitchen and an expanded outdoor beer garden, as detailed by Cincinnati CityBeat at the time.
That second chapter ended in April 2025, when March First temporarily halted operations at Woodburn Brewing specifically to reassign taproom staff toward its newer Cincinnati Distilling retail bottle shop in Monroe, Ohio. The pause turned permanent, and the property never reopened as a brewery.
Part of a Bigger Corporate Pullback
Woodburn Brewing's closure wasn't an isolated business failure — it was one piece of a broader retreat from taprooms by parent company March First. The company also closed its downtown Fountain Square taproom in July 2025 and shuttered its FigLeaf Brewing taproom in Middletown last week, moves Hoodline previously reported were tied to the company's pivot toward retail spirits distribution rather than beer taprooms.
The trend extends well beyond March First's portfolio. Greater Cincinnati has seen a wave of brewery closures in recent years, including the shutdown of 17-year-old Listermann Brewing Company in August 2025 and the closure of BrewDog's Pendleton taproom in June 2025. Nationally, 2024 marked the first year since 2005 that craft brewery closures outpaced new openings, with 529 closures against 430 openings, according to data reported by The Drinks Business — even as Ohio still had more than 430 operating craft breweries as of mid-2025.
A Turn-Key Space in a Historic Corridor
Whatever The Gardens ends up serving, it won't need to build a kitchen from scratch. Ahead of the lease signing, commercial brokers listed the building for sale at $1,299,000 or for lease at $22 per square foot, marketing it on Crexi as a turn-key second-generation restaurant and bar property with a fully built-out kitchen, restrooms, nearby parking access, and existing furniture, fixtures, and equipment included.
The building sits in the De Sales Corner historic business district of East Walnut Hills, an area originally incorporated in 1866 as the independent Village of Woodburn before its annexation into Cincinnati in 1873 — a history that explains where the street, and the old brewery's name, came from.
Brokerages 3CRE and Pesola Advisors Group formally confirmed this month that The Gardens had completed lease negotiations for the space, closing the book on a real estate listing that had lingered since the brewery's exit. What exactly the concept will look like once it opens remains an open question for now, leaving East Walnut Hills residents to wait and see what fills one of the neighborhood's most storied storefronts next.
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