I will miss Steve and Arlyn Llewelyn as owners of Function Brewing.

It’s the brewpub downstairs from my 6th Street apartment in downtown Bloomington, Indiana.

They have sold the business to Endeavor Hospitality Group, a Bloomington firm that owns several other local restaurants.

Sadie Clark, director of operations at Endeavor, confirmed the acquisition in an email to The B Square on Wednesday.

Function Brewing joins Southern Stone, Grazie Italiano, Garnish Catering, Underground Bakery, The Owlery, Feast, Market and Cellar, The Fresh Fork, The Court Room, Beaumont House, and Wagon Wheel Meats as part of the family of businesses that Endeavor has acquired.

On Friday, the official publicity came in the form of a personal message from Steve and Arlyn on the brewery’s Facebook Page.

Steve and Arlyn launched the brewery in 2014, right around this time of year. Their message posted on Friday reflected on those eight years: “The last eight years have been full of joy but also deeply exhausting. Owning a business is hard; and this past year, in particular, has been brutally hard. Honestly, we just couldn’t do it any longer.”

About the new owners, the message adds, “We are thrilled and relieved to hand off our business to a local company with more energy and resources than we have, that can take our little brewery and grow it in ways that we could only imagine.”

What is great about Function Brewing? For one thing Steve brews great beer.

But I am not an aficionado of beer—I cannot tell you the difference between a stout, an ale, a lager or a porter. I had to look up “kinds of beer” on the internet in order to type out that list. Continue reading “Column | The calculus of a great local business: Function Brewing changes owners” →