Swine City Evolves Into Sacred Mondays

Written By: The Gnarly Gnome

Oh, the rumor mill. One of the few things that you can be sure of in this city is that the rumor mill will churn away. That proves even more true when the industry is so freaking fickle like it is right now. There are more options for drinkers to consume, and more reasons for those same drinkers to just stay home. I don’t think things have ever come close culturally to returning to what they were pre-pandemic.

I know that you, if you’re reading this website, are probably a die-hard beer fan but it’s becoming increasingly hard to exist just on the back of craft beer. Places have to evolve, they have to figure out where they fit in an ever-changing world.

Let’s talk about Swine City. They are no longer a brewery, ownership is changing… but the soul of the place? It’s exactly the same as it’s been.

What’s Going On With Swine?

My phone is always a fun exercise in trying to figure out what to listen to, and what you should be ignoring. I get a lot of messages that tell me one place is doing this, and one place is doing that. 90% of what I get told is wrong, and 5% is right. The other 5%? There’s some little, tiny piece of truth in it.

The first messages that I got were that Swine City was closing. The messages then started turning to they’d been bought by someone who was turning it into a bar. There were a lot of other things in between… but the truth all along has been that it’s a little piece of this, and a little piece of that.

The real story was that through all of this, even Swine City wasn’t sure how they were going to navigate the future.

I had a couple people get pretty mean in my DMs telling me that I was doing some sort of disservice to the community by not exploring the story – yada yada yada… get over yourselves. I’ve been in contact with the brewery, I’ve been unwrapping the story as it’s come to life – and I was asked to not talk about it until ink was dry and things were actually figured out.

An Uphill Battle

Swine City’s owner, former owner, however you want to look at things (we’ll talk about that) has not been quiet, so I hope that I’m not speaking out of turn when I talk about his health issues. Dan was hit hard by a shitty diagnosis immediately after opening Swine City back in 2018. It’s been a rough path to figuring out how to live with and manage that diagnosis. It’s expensive… and it’s certainly taken its toll.

A couple years later, COVID decimated the industry that we all love. I don’t need to tell you how brutal that has been on ANY small business, let alone one in the service industry.

Over its entire life, it feels like Swine City has not had a moment to catch its breath, to figure itself out or to really get its feet under it. Challenge upon challenge have kept smacking them around and things finally came to a head where something had to change to make things work.

Ethan Takes The Reins

You can’t ignore craft beer’s biggest strong point: the community around them. That’s not just talking about us, as customers who regularly belly up to the bar – there’s a whole lot of pieces to that community that make it work. I’m of the belief that the biggest, and most important part is the people that work for a brewery. Without good employees, nothing else can exist.

That also happens to be how Swine City is managing its second life.

Ethan Clifton has been with Swine City for the long haul. Not only has he been involved with the beer, the service, the vision of what Swine looks and feels like, he’s also behind their fantastic ‘Underdogs Almost Famous Weiners’ restaurant concept. He’s also taking over to carry the space on into its next life.

If you have had the chance to meet Ethan, or to see any of his work (check out his Lonerbrand clothing company here), you know that his vision is behind the feeling that so many of us have fallen in love with at Swine City. That’s the biggest reason that I’m excited for the future – a space that they’re calling ‘Sacred Mondays’.

Sacred Mondays And The Future

This has been a gradual transition, which is part of the reason that I think there has been as much confusion and rumors that have sprung up. The sad part for some of us is that the brewhouse has moved out of the space… but the good news is that in its place is a bigger space for performances. That’s the central soul to what makes Sacred Mondays work… live music, events… community.

It’s got the personality of a dive bar, but still with the soul of a craft brewery remaining behind. More affordable beer options – cocktails on draft (that cocktail list is probably worthy of its own post, soon – Ethan’s partner Alexis has done an insanely good job at curating a new cocktail menu that just sort of feels PERFECT) and the music. Live music night, after night, after night. We’re not talking about your normal bar band, cranking out Guns and Roses covers, either. These are great bands, playing their own music. Real. Live. Art.

There are a lot of places over the last few years that have closed, or evolved, or changed hands that lost sight of who they are. This is the perfect example of an evolution that showcases how a place understands itself, understands its customers and is dialing that in deeper.

What This Means For You

If you’ve been a die-hard Swine City fan, chances are you’ve already seen some of these changes taking shape. As Ethan takes over the business, he’s leaning further into what the place has slowly been becoming. Dan is still involved, but he’s taking a major step back as he hands things over. The food you love is still there. The employees you’re familiar with are still there.

If you came for the beer they brewed, this is a real loss. But so much of what made Swine special is carrying forward and getting more room to grow. The food, the music, the people. Sacred Mondays feels like a concentration of that.

If you want to know more about Sacred Mondays, the best way to learn more is by visiting their space at 4614 Industry Drive in Fairfield Ohio. – www.sacredmondaysbar.com

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