Helping Small Businesses

Small Business Development Program

Family-Based Childcare Training Program

Brewery Small Business Complex

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Introduction To The Brewery

The JPNDC Brewery Small Business Complex is home to 50 small businesses that together employ more than 250 people.

JPNDC's goal at The Brewery has long been to bring back the jobs that were lost when the Haffenreffer Brewery ceased operations in the 1960s and to create a supportive environment for local businesses, many of which are women- or minority-owned.

The idea of revitalizing this abandoned 19th-century industrial site was little more than an ambitious dream for the JPNDC's founders in 1977. Six years later the organization was able to purchase the property, and by the mid-1990s, two-thirds of the complex was back in service.

In 2006, a new public entrance on Amory Street welcomed the neighborhood to The Brewery and the many businesses who make it their home. In 2007, Ula Café joined Mike's Fitness, the Tony Williams Dance Center, long-time tenant Boston Beer/Samuel Adams and more than three dozen other businesses.

In 2008, the 25th anniversary of the JPNDC's acquisition of The Brewery, we are beginning "phase 2" of the final renovations of the five-acre, 16-building, 150,000-square foot complex.

A Brewery Timeline

1871: Rudolf Haffenreffer, a German immigrant, opens a small brewery near the Stony Brook in Jamaica Plain.  During its peak years, the Haffenreffer Brewery employs 250 workers and brews half a million barrels of beer per year.

1950s: Under the pressure of competition from large national companies, production begins to decline.

1965: Brewing ceases.  The Haffenreffer Brewery remains largely unoccupied except for a few squatters and a moving company.

1977: JPNDC founded.

1978: JPNDC takes out an option to buy the Brewery and begins to raise funds for acquisition and renovation.  Trees are growing from the foundation, ceilings and walls are crumbling due to fire and neglect, and graffiti covers every building.

1982: The Haffenreffer Brewery is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

1983: The JPNDC purchases the Brewery to revitalize the neighborhood and support the development of successful small businesses.

1985: The brand-new Boston Beer Company, brewer of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, rents space at the Brewery for local distribution; two years later, it begins to brew specialty beers on site.

1992: The Boston Globe features the Brewery Small Business Complex as part of its series "Saving the Cities: What Works."

2002: 800 people attend the JPNDC’s 25^th anniversary celebration at the Brewery.

2003: JPNDC launches renovations of the "Main Block" at the Brewery, to result in the opening of 40,000 square feet of previously unimproved space.

2006: The Brewery creates a new face with the opening of the Amory Street entrance, where new tenants Mike’s Fitness, the Tony Williams Dance Center, Women in the Building Trades and others bring new or expanded services to JP residents.

2008: Phase 2 of Main Block renovations begin, to result in the anticipated 2009. Opening of the relocated "Bella Luna Restaurant" + "Pandamonium" a children's entertainment center and play space.

Boston Pretzel provides Gillette Stadium, Boston College, First Night, and thousands of tourists every year with JP's version of a traditional treat.