Mugs Alehouse In Williamsburg Closing

WILLIAMSBURG – Community staple, Mugs Alehouse, will be closing on June 22nd after over 26 years of business.

Co-owner Ed Berestecki, who runs the alehouse with his wife and other co-owner, Halina, said that the bar was initially scheduled to close on the first of June, but bartending staff talked him out of it, “because of the fact that there is a following and people want to say their appropriate goodbyes”.

Berestecki, who is in his fifties, cited a changing neighborhood and inability to keep up with the bar anymore as the reasons for closing.

“We believe that its run its course. It’s pretty much that time for us, because we’re getting older, just don’t have the energy to keep up with it anymore. [The] neighborhood has changed, it’s just a bunch of different things that have just happened and it’s gotten to the point where I think we just don’t have enough in us to keep going, to make it better, and to keep going with it. It’s just become tough for us,” Berestecki said.

Mugs Alehouse, which has been serving craft tap and bottled beers since 1992, was loved by much of the community.

Berestecki said that, while they haven’t officially announced the closing on their Twitter account at the time of this article, they had received numerous tweets from lovers of the bar sad to see it close.

“There’s a lot of people sad about it, and it is a sad time, I mean it’s sad for me also. It pretty much has been my fifth child. So, it’s been a tough thing, but the feedback so far has just been sadness, and I understand because I’m right alongside with them,” Berestecki said.