3 Keys Brewing and Gastrobrew Closes Sunday as Motorworks Faces Foreclosure

BRADENTON, Fla., May 29, 2026 — Bradenton's craft brewing community faces a significant setback this week as two of its established establishments confront permanent closure simultaneously, 3 Keys Brewing and Gastrobrew at 2505 Manatee Ave. E. will permanently close at the end of the month, with its final day in business on Sunday, May 31, while Motorworks Brewing at 1014 9th St. W. faces eviction proceedings in a $1.9 million foreclosure case filed just days ago.

The twin developments mark a difficult moment for Bradenton's independent hospitality scene, coming just months after the sudden death of Calusa Brewing co-owner Geordie Rauch, a Sarasota native and former Navy SEAL who passed away after an unexpected cardiac event in March at age 45, cast a shadow over the wider regional craft beer community.

Together the closures and the foreclosure proceedings signal the compounding economic pressures bearing down on independent craft beverage operators in southwest Florida, where rising costs, softening consumer spending, and the lingering disruption of the pandemic-era loan period are converging on businesses that survived the hardest years only to find the recovery harder still.

3 Keys Brewing and Gastrobrew Cites Economic Slowdown in Final Announcement

The owners of 3 Keys Brewing and Gastrobrew announced with "heavy hearts" on Tuesday that the brewery would permanently close, citing the economy as the reason for ending seven years of operation.

"Like so many small businesses, the continued slowdown in the economy has made it no longer possible for us to keep going. It is not the ending we envisioned, but we are at peace knowing we gave it everything we had and that you were with us every step of the way," the owners wrote in their social media announcement.

In the days before closing, regulars are encouraged to use their rewards points and mug club members are asked to pick up their mugs. "And we want you to be part of sending us off the right way," the owners said. The Manatee Avenue East location has served Bradenton as both a craft brewery and a gastrobrew, a format that combines a working brewery with a full food service operation, since 2019.

Motorworks Brewing Faces $1.9 Million Foreclosure Case on 9th Street West

Motorworks Brewing, the twelve-year-old brewery whose 27,000-square-foot facility on 9th Street West has been a fixture of Bradenton's craft scene since 2014, is facing eviction from its property as a result of a $1.9 million foreclosure case.

Seacoast National Bank, the plaintiff, filed the foreclosure lawsuit on May 21 across four loans borrowed by Motorworks Brewing LLC and Princess T LLC. The bank is seeking repayment of the loan's principal, interest, and late fees, and has also asked the court for a deficiency judgment and an order to sell the property and evict the brewery.

Until recently, the brewery was still earning recognition for its beers, its ThaIPA and Headlight Lager both won medals at the 2026 Best Florida Beer Championship. The Ninth Street facility is known for its popular beer garden centred around a 150-year-old oak tree, as well as live music and food truck events that have drawn community gatherings across its 12 years of operation.

Motorworks also opened a downtown Orlando taproom in 2020, but that location has also closed, with a notice posted to its door on May 26 indicating the company owes $12,679.24 in unpaid rent. The foreclosure case in Bradenton has not yet resulted in a final eviction order, and no closing date for the Ninth Street location has been officially confirmed by the brewery.

What the Closures Mean for Bradenton's Craft Beer Scene

The departure of 3 Keys and the legal jeopardy facing Motorworks removes two of the names that have defined Bradenton's craft beer identity for nearly a decade from the local market. Bradenton's brewery scene built itself gradually across the 2010s into an ecosystem with enough variety to sustain a Small Brewery Sunday tradition, a regular rotation of food truck and live music events, and a community of regulars whose loyalty to independent operators ran deep.

The economic conditions that 3 Keys cited in its closure announcement, a sustained slowdown in consumer discretionary spending, mirror those reported across the craft brewing industry nationally in 2026, where taproom revenue has softened as the post-pandemic surge in local brewery visits has moderated and household budgets have tightened under the continuing weight of higher prices across food, housing, and energy.

For Motorworks, the scale of the foreclosure case suggests a debt accumulated over multiple years rather than a sudden liquidity crisis, a pattern consistent with the financial profile of pandemic-era brewery loans that came due at a moment when the revenue environment had not recovered to the level operators had projected when they took the money.

3 Keys Brewing and Gastrobrew at 2505 Manatee Ave. E., Bradenton will serve its final customers on Sunday, May 31. Mug club members and rewards point holders should visit before close of business that day.

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