Burial Beer Takes Over Curve Studios, Bringing Brewery and Arts to Asheville Riverfront

Three brick buildings that Standard Oil erected along the French Broad River in 1916 are about to become Burial Beer Co.'s most ambitious outpost yet. The Asheville brewery announced plans on April 1 to take over Curve Studios, the River Arts District property owned by Pattiy Torno that for decades anchored creative life along the riverfront before Tropical Storm Helene flooded it in September 2024.

The timing carries weight. Helene damaged roughly 80 percent of businesses in the River Arts District, displacing more than 500 artists and gutting a corridor that generated an estimated $300 million annually for the local economy before the storm. Curve Studios, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as one of the oldest properties in the district, was among the casualties.

Burial's plan centers on opening the land for public roaming, reinstating artist and creative programming in the buildings, supporting Asheville's original greenway vision along that stretch of the French Broad, and building out brewery-anchored hospitality that can provide the sustained revenue stream a restoration of this scale demands. In its announcement post, the brewery credited Torno directly: "The pollen of the bustling gardens, and the chilly grip of 110-year-old masonry. It's a magical venue that deserves to continue to tell its tale. And because Pattiy believed in us enough to give us a shot, we will now get a chance to narrate its next chapter."

For Burial, the move is a logical extension of a model the brewery has been refining since its South Slope origins. The operation now spans multiple Asheville venues and brand extensions, including Visuals, its natural-wine project, and a release calendar that regularly fuses narrative art with limited-run beers. Curve Studios gives that approach a riverfront stage with historic bones: a property where the sensory experience of masonry, gardens, and moving water is baked in before a single tap handle gets installed.

What that unlocks for RAD beer tourism is worth tracking closely. Burial's taprooms function as destination experiences rather than neighborhood bars, drawing visitors who plan around releases and events the way record collectors plan around drops. Transplanting that draw to the River Arts District means foot traffic on days when galleries and studios are open, a built-in reason for out-of-town visitors to extend time in the corridor, and a private partner absorbing infrastructure and flood-mitigation costs that municipalities cannot easily fund alone.

Burial acknowledged the difficulty plainly, noting that reinvesting in the RAD after Helene is not easy. The buildings themselves, described by the brewery as holding one of the city's "most profound stories," will require significant work before any taproom programming takes shape. Still, the framework Burial is committing to, public greenway access, active artist residency, and community-facing events layered over a working brewery, mirrors what made the River Arts District worth saving in the first place. The next chapter at Curve Studios, as Burial put it, is theirs to narrate.