Flying Pig Tavern & Tap opens Blackwood destination for craft beer

Flying Pig Tavern & Tap turned a familiar Blackwood property into a true beer destination, opening with 48 taps, a games area and a tiki bar in the former Favorites Off-Track Betting building on Blackwood-Clementon Road. The new room opened June 11 at 11 a.m., with live music set for 6 p.m., and it was built to feel bigger than a neighborhood stop.

The site has been through several lives already. Before Favorites OTB, the building housed Diamond Diner and later The Stone Grill, and the property has long been known for a rear patio and bar area, a massive oval bar and a downstairs level that spent years functioning as a nightclub. Flying Pig did not erase that history so much as rework it into a more ambitious layout, with a 50-seat centerpiece bar, multiple dining areas, indoor and outdoor entertainment spaces, private-event accommodations and a lower-level venue still under development.

For beer drinkers, the headline is the tap list. Flying Pig Blackwood says the location has 48 taps and is aiming at a mix that runs from domestic staples to craft favorites, with a major emphasis on local New Jersey beer. Its signature pours include Flying Lager and Flying IPA, both brewed by Swedesboro Brewing Company and sold as Flying Pig exclusives, giving the house program a clear South Jersey identity instead of a generic draft wall.

That partnership matters because Swedesboro Brewing has become a recognizable regional player of its own, with locations in Swedesboro, Collingswood and Burlington, plus a beer garden at Trenton Thunder Stadium. The brewery says its mission is rooted in brewing history and community storytelling, and its website also leans on award language that includes a USA Today 10 Best New Breweries ranking and a 2025 Untappd Community Awards win. Folding those beers into a high-traffic tavern in Gloucester Township gives the brand another showcase while giving Blackwood a more serious draft program than the old OTB footprint ever implied.

Flying Pig’s leadership also signals that this is meant to be more than a one-off restaurant conversion. Jack O’Connell brings deep South Jersey craft-beer ties to the operation, and the Flying Pig group already had four locations open across New Jersey and Pennsylvania as Blackwood was coming together. That scale, paired with the 48-tap system and the rebuilt entertainment space, makes the new Blackwood room look less like a simple reopening and more like a bet that beer, events and destination dining can carry the old building into a new era.