12th Street Taphouse tapped out
Tara Wheeler of the Charlottesville Newsplex first reported that the restaurant/bar/comedy club known as the 12th Street Taphouse has shut its doors. Known for its 20-ounce “pints” of beer, it opened in early 2009 on West Main Street by former chef and part owner of nearby Michael’s Bistro, Chuck Adcock.
The building, now largely surrounded by the growing UVA Medical Center, long housed a string of familiar restaurants, including— in reverse chronological order— Spry’s BBQ, Northern Exposure, Zipper’s, and Expresso International (yes, ex-presso), which later became the Italian Villa on Emmet Street.
According to Adock, the four months of utility work in 2009 for the massive Barry and Bill Battle Building at UVA Children’s Hospital, which will rise on the temporary parking lot beside the 12th Street Taphouse, put the restaurant in too much debt.
“We just couldn’t recover,” he says.
If that was the case, the odds of building owner/music magnate Coran Capshaw— who financed the Taphouse’s renovation work— finding a new tenant doesn’t look promising, considering the fact that the next phase of hospital construction involves raising a $141 million, 7-story, 200,000 square-foot building right next door over the next four years.