Black Diamond Brewery to transform East Palestine freight depot into taproom, distillery

A freight depot on West Taggart Street is set for a second life as East Palestine’s next beer-and-spirits stop, with Black Diamond Brewery and Distillery moving into the former rail building and planning a taproom, restaurant and distilling operation under one roof.

The project gives the village something craft breweries know well: a building with a story already built in. Black Diamond said the depot will be renovated for the business, and the work is expected to go out for bid within weeks. The opening target is early next year, which puts the hard part, construction, utilities and building systems, in front of the easy part, selling the idea of a destination.

That challenge is exactly why the old depot matters. Village Manager Antonio Diaz-Guy has said turning a historic depot into a modern restaurant is no small task because the utilities and systems have to be adapted to a structure that predates them. East Palestine Village Council also approved a Community Reinvestment Area agreement in March involving the village, the East Palestine Community Improvement Corporation and Black Diamond Brewing & Distribution Company LLC, and in January council adopted the Secretary of the Interior’s standards for rehabilitation for the depot at 58 West Taggart St. That means preservation will shape the project, not just decoration.

The public side of the deal is already substantial. The Village of East Palestine is using a CRA agreement tied to the project, and the Ohio Department of Development provided a $250,000 grant for rehabilitation work on the old depot. That kind of support makes the brewery move look less like a standalone expansion and more like a bet that a carefully restored rail-era property can pull people back into the village.

The timing also lands against East Palestine’s recent history. On the evening of February 3, 2023, 38 railcars on a Norfolk Southern train derailed and caught fire in the village. Ohio later created the East Palestine Emergency Support Program, which offers 0% interest, forgivable loans to businesses affected by the derailment. By May 2024, 23 businesses had received more than $3.8 million through that program. Put together, the depot project sits inside a larger recovery effort that still carries economic and emotional weight in Columbiana County.

Black Diamond is not building this playbook from scratch. Its website lists locations across Ohio, including Nelsonville, Circleville, Marietta, Johnstown, Shawnee, Greenfield and Waverly. Its Nelsonville flagship, at 185 W. Canal St., combines a craft brewery and small-batch distillery, and that model appears to be the template for East Palestine. In a village of 4,671 people, according to the 2020 Census, a restored freight depot with beer, spirits and food is not just another taproom. It is a statement about how small towns can turn industrial leftovers into places people plan a stop around.