Are breweries a place for children? For Forest City Brewery in Cleveland, the answer is an emphatic “no.” In September 2024, it announced a ban on children under 16 after too many “bad apples” and “irresponsible parents.” As founder and GM Jay Demagall explained in the Facebook post, “Our business is to serve great beer, food and other alcoholic beverages to ADULTS…Our staff are not equipped to monitor or babysit kids whose parents treat the brewery like a playground.”
Cue the web war, as customers, bloggers, Redditors, TikTokers and others joined one camp or the other. Demagall’s post alone elicited nearly 400 comments, with the majority cheering the ban but plenty of others pushing back. As one parent put it, “There are already so few eating and drinking establishments in Cleveland to go to with our son. Regular restaurants just aren’t well designed for kids. Forest City was one of the few places that was.”
Forest City is not alone, either, in wrestling with the sticky question of children in breweries and taprooms as others tap out of child-friendly policies — if only partially — and search for solutions that satisfy all.
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