Manatawny Still Works, one of Philly’s most renowned distilleries, is closing with two days’ notice

Manatawny Still Works, a Pottstown distillery and tasting room, is set to close Sunday, as are its three satellite cocktail bars in East Passyunk, Fishtown, and Ardmore.

The award-winning distillery, which celebrated its 11th anniversary in April, announced the imminent closure on social media late Friday afternoon.

“Now’s your last chance to stop into [our four locations] to savor our craveable cocktails and show your support for our outstanding tasting room teams,” the post read, adding that gift cards would not be redeemable after Sunday. Spirits purchased online but not picked up will not be available, the post added.

“We’re most upset by the dissolution of our incredible team of employees,” the post continued.

All told, Manatawny employed about 20 people, said Jennifer Sabatino, the director of business operations, on Saturday.

The distillery’s owners did not immediately respond to requests for comment. “I know that the partners tried their best to find new investment and buyers,” said Sabatino, who developed Manatawny’s popular tasting rooms over her seven years with the company.

Sabatino said the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, which buys Manatawny’s products for its Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores, had dramatically reduced its purchases in the last year. “When you are a small business and the PLCB is your biggest customer and they’ve been consistently purchasing X amount of dollars several times a year, you include that in your financial planning,” she said. “When that money isn’t coming in, it can be a real problem.”

Sabatino also said she had noticed the national trend that “drinking never really came back after the pandemic. The younger generations don’t drink like [people] used to. While the tasting rooms pay the bills and they are not losing money, they’re definitely not as strong as they were.”

Commenters on the social-media posts expressed disappointment, well wishes, and fond memories, but some called out the short notice.

“You’re giving people 2 days to use their gift cards?” one commenter wrote. “Why couldn’t the gift cards be used at [Sly Fox Brewing Co.] since it’s under the same ownership?” asked another. (Sly Fox co-owner John Giannopoulos is named on Manatawny’s liquor license as a partner.) Added another: “Nice to give notice before skulking off into the night. You’ve known for weeks you were shutting down.”

Indeed, word of Manatawny’s impending closure had been circulating within the industry for nearly two weeks. On June 18, Jay Kosek, the company’s director of brand operations, rebuffed an emailed question from The Inquirer but promised to advise of any impending announcement. Kosek emailed The Inquirer at 5:13 p.m. Friday to advise that Manatawny would publish news of the closure at 5:15, adding: “I’m guessing you won’t find it to be too surprising.”

Sabatino said the owners timed the announcement to “make sure that they had control of all the finances to make sure all of our vendors got paid, to make sure the staff got paid, and to make sure that we went out in a way that they felt comfortable with the relationships that we had. Had they announced it before that, there was a possibility that that wouldn’t have happened. I think that having control over that was more important to them than making a big announcement that we were done. The staff has been treated very well. We were guaranteed that if they stayed through the month, we would get every penny.”

Sabatino said employees were asked to “just keep it between us and our closest regulars. It wasn’t ‘don’t say anything.’ It was just understood that this is the game plan that we are moving forward with and everybody was on board.”

It wasn’t a good sign when Ardmore-based Venezeulan popup Autana — which had been operating out of Lancaster Avenue’s Manatawny tasting room for months — announced earlier this week that its residency there would close on Saturday. Autana is looking for a new home base in Ardmore, according to co-owner Maria-José Hernández. In the meantime, the popup will operate in a shared commissary space in Drexel Hill to supply takeout, delivery, catering, and farmers markets.

Manatawny opened in Pottstown in 2014, bringing a quarter-million-dollar Italian still and a well-equipped bar with room for 150-plus guests to the same industrial complex as Sly Fox. It was backed by several deep-pocketed investors, including Giannopoulos, Main Line Retirement Advisors principal Al Matarazzo, Second Federal Savings & Loan Association board member Derek Menaldino, and Paul Czachor, former CEO of Pottstown’s American Keg Co., which shuttered in 2023 after the company was sold to a German competitor.

According to an account Matarazzo gave Suburban Life Magazine in 2015, Giannopoulos first floated the idea of opening a distillery over the course of a retirement-planning consultation.

“[Giannopoulos] said he wanted to start a distillery, and I said so did I. It was so matter-of-fact, and we both knew it would work. Four or five of us put up the money, bought the equipment from Italy, and now we’re in the distilling business,” Matarazzo said at the time. “Literally a year and half after we opened for business, we’re winning awards.”

The awards were largely the work of lead distiller Max Pfeffer, a Sly Fox and Victory Brewing alum who became an early partner in Manatawny. Pfeffer stewarded Manatawny’s spirits to regional and national recognition, repeatedly medaling at the American Spirits Council of Tasters and the American Craft Distilling Institute and frequently making Craig LaBan’s annual roundups of whiskeys worth gifting.

Manatawny’s brand was bolstered by its three satellite tasting rooms, which read very much like a regular cocktail bar, with over a dozen intriguing drinks on the menu at any given time, exclusively built with spirits from Manatawny and other Pennsylvania makers. The varied cocktails — and the tasty snacks that went with them — were thanks to Jennifer Sabatino, who joined the company in 2018, managing its South Philly outpost on East Passyunk Avenue. Sabatino led the openings of Manatawny’s Ardmore and Fishtown locations in 2022 and 2023, respectively, becoming the company’s director of business operations.

Pfeffer was promoted to president in 2023. In a recent interview with Beverage Biz Podcast, he said Giannopoulos — still an owner of Sly Fox — is no longer involved with Manatawny. (Giannopoulos and 12 other part-owners are listed as officers on Manatawny’s 2024-25 Pennsylvania distillery license, registered under the name Noah Spirits LLC.)

In the same interview — taped earlier this year — Pfeffer was asked about Manatawny’s future.

“I think we’re in a readjustment period. The golden era of craft is over ... Alcohol’s losing ground,” he said, perhaps foreshadowing this weekend’s announcement. “We realize that you can’t just do the same thing for 10 years and expect it to keep working for the next 10 years.”