Southfield - Copper Canyon Brewery - For Sale

After a steady decline, Copper Canyon Brewery in Southfield has shut down. Of course, this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone familiar with the place. It's been in trouble for a while.

I used to talk to Todd all the time on Twitter before I banned myself from it. What happened?

I don't know any of the background. It had been going down hill for quite a while. It really seemed like they were struggling to make money. We only went because it was close to work. We were there 2 weeks ago. Then last week it was closed with a electrical shutoff notice posted to the door.

Does anyone know the size of their brewhouse?

MachineShopBrewing said:

I used to talk to Todd all the time on Twitter before I banned myself from it. What happened?

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Just came across this article. Looks like he left for another opportunity in VA.

lutherslagers said:

Does anyone know the size of their brewhouse?

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I want to say 20bbl but I'm totally guessing.

Surprised they lasted this long; I never had a good experience there.

The last time I was there, we stopped after a Tigers game and were the only people in the place. Despite it being empty, the service was horrible and we had to hunt down the waitress to get a second round of beers. We would have stayed longer and probably racked up a decent bill but gave up and left.

I don't work on that side of town anymore but there used to be a giant Chinese/Japanese/Korean buffet next to the old Star Theatre that had a bunch of brewery equipment up on it's second floor behind some glass windows.

I think it was left over from a defunct brewery but I don't recall a brewery ever being there. Always thought it was odd; tried to talk to the buffet people about it but there was too much of a language barrier.

They were looking to sell out to one of the big brewery chains. They laid Todd off and had 2 guys from their kitchen take over brewing. Last time I went in there was for my mug club member meal back in june. This was after they had laid Todd off but the new 'brewers' beer was not done fermenting yet... so they just had guest taps. Rumors had it that the owner has not wanted to have the brewery for the last 5+ years... but nobody will pay him what he wants for the place. The big brewery chain deal fell through... so I guess they are just closing down now....

Todd has moved to VA and has a great opportunity at Fair Winds Brewing Company as their head brewer.

Looks like he's in my backyard now!

Looks like it's going for $1.2MM. Seems steep for a 20BBL system. Maybe he owns the building outright, that would help justify the price. What I'm reading here though, the brand isn't worth anything -- it may even be a liability.

jpalarchio said:

I don't work on that side of town anymore but there used to be a giant Chinese/Japanese/Korean buffet next to the old Star Theatre that had a bunch of brewery equipment up on it's second floor behind some glass windows.

I think it was left over from a defunct brewery but I don't recall a brewery ever being there. Always thought it was odd; tried to talk to the buffet people about it but there was too much of a language barrier.

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Still there. I talked to the owner a couple of years back. He leases the restaurant space and doesn't have direct access to the brewing area. What I heard was that they brought all the equipment in while the building was being built and now have no way to get it out without major construction. I wonder what condition it was left in. From the looks of it from the restaurant, it was quite a big operation. If I remember what he said correctly, the place was a steakhouse before being the buffet, and the brewery was called the starlight or something like that.

Yeah the brewery was part of the Star movie theater next door.

neovox said:

What I heard was that they brought all the equipment in while the building was being built and now have no way to get it out without major construction.

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Looks like poor planning all around. Found the description below of that place, apparently it was initially a brewery that never opened and then was part of Étouffée. The part about grain removal is kind of funny.

http://books.google.com/books?id=dL...ery%22 southfield&pg=PA51#v=onepage&q&f=false

(pages 51 and 52)

So what was the issue? I know when I was there they served a visibly intoxicated women. I even told the manager she was drunk, but they still served her. They had comfortable chairs though.

More like what wasn't the issue. Towards the end, the food was ok to bad. The staff was ambivalent. They weren't making their own beer on site. They opened half the place as a cigar bar in an attempt to attract more people, and although it was closed off and usually had no more than 4 people, the smell of stale cigar smoke soaked into the main area. It was pretty obvious for at least the last year they were open, if not longer, that they were on their way out.

I think the owner was a big problem... The location kind of sucked as well. Not much housing around there. The place used to be pretty busy on weekdays after work for a couple hours... but died down pretty quick and the weekends it was absolutely dead.

Still available by the way. They want $800k without the licensing or brewery equipment.

mors said:

I think the owner was a big problem... The location kind of sucked as well. Not much housing around there. The place used to be pretty busy on weekdays after work for a couple hours... but died down pretty quick and the weekends it was absolutely dead.

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It it was kind of weird to get to if you didn't already know how to get back there. We only went because I used to work near there. We used it as a place to go have beers with the co-workers.

Yeah I used to work right on the service drive by there and we would go there after work 1-2 times a week. The owner is super stingy though and they started to cut corners...

I think most of their issues come from the owner Matt Prentice. We used to go to some of the restaurants he has 'owned' or his name was attached to owning. Now won't touch them with someone else's money and the new owner's. He tries to run some higher end places and they all end up being 300% over priced. All you end up getting is stuffy staff, stuffy patrons and a steak that is worse off than going to Texas Roadhouse but pay for it like its better than Ruth's Chris or Morton's. He has been single handily trying to ensure that Detroit has no high end restaurants like other cities

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20131023/NEWS/131029925/judge-awards-2-million-in-damages-against-matt-prentice#

Ed Miri was the owner...

http://www.coppercanyonbrewery.com/staff.html

My mistake...looked at the link to Etouffe and say Prentice and shudderd a bit.

http://books.google.com/books?id=dL...page&q=copper canyon brewery prentice&f=false

Yeah that place had no chance... all the brewing equipment just sits there unused to this day. You can look at it through windows while you eat at the Chinese food buffet that currently exists in that space. For a short time the Chinese food buffet was putting on their coupons they send to my house that they brewed beer... but I think they didn't realize how hard it was to get the license and that got squashed.

Last time I was there the beer was awful. At the moment the brewing equipment is for sale, separately. Can't seem to find any info on that however...