Councilor mourns Top of Main Brew Pub closure on Main Street

Top of Main Brew Pub’s 37-year run on Park City’s Main Street ended with more than just the loss of a familiar dining room. It became another public marker of how quickly the character of the downtown corridor is changing, and why a growing number of locals are asking whether Main Street can still sustain the businesses that gave it its identity.

Councilor Tana Toly used a public moment to mourn the closure, and the reaction underscored that this was not being treated as an ordinary business note. It was the second time in a month she had commented on the loss of a business on Main Street, a reminder that the turnover is arriving in clusters, not as isolated departures.

The brewpub had been part of Park City’s commercial story since the late 1980s. Greg Schirf founded Wasatch Brewery in Park City in 1986, and Wasatch Brewpub opened in 1989, just a month before the first Squatters. Schirf said Park City leaders originally hoped the brewpub would help revive a Main Street where many storefronts were boarded up. He also pushed for a 1988 state law change that allowed breweries to sell product on site, clearing the way for the business model that helped define the street’s early renaissance. Schirf said “half the establishments were boarded up.”

The building housing the original Wasatch Brewpub was under contract to be sold to a New York investor as of April 28, 2026, with the deal expected to close within 60 days. The tenant’s lease was bought out and terminated, and the business and its equipment had to be moved by the end of July 2026, making the shutdown part of a broader property and tenancy shift rather than a simple retirement of a storefront.

The closure comes as Park City is trying to manage Main Street’s future more deliberately. The city launched its Main Street Area Plan in May 2024 with goals to preserve Main Street’s character, improve access, stabilize workforce and business success, and enhance economic vibrancy. Park City says multiple studies and capital investment plans have focused on Main Street and Historic Park City since at least the 1980s, but the latest round of closures suggests the tension between preservation and pressure is only intensifying.

Top of Main’s loss also hits close to home because of the family names tied to it. The Park City Chamber profile from October 2025 noted that head brewer Nils Imboden is the son of Adolph Imboden, whose Adolph’s restaurant ran for nearly 50 years and was itself a well-known local gathering place. The closure of Main Street Pizza & Noodle in early April 2026, after about 35 years, now sits beside Top of Main as another sign that longtime restaurants are struggling to hold on in the heart of Park City.