PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDED BY 16 LOTS BREWERY
Two months after announcing sporadic hours and the closure of its kitchen, 16 Lots Southern Outpost returns to life this Friday, March 15, albeit with some tweaks and hard lessons learned.
Owners Del Hall and Mike Burton opened its Newport offshoot last spring but by this January, the brewery was struggling. Hall took to social media.
“Hey, friends, many of you know, things aren’t looking great for us,” read a message on the brewery’s Facebook on January 19. “Are we closing? Are we not? Truth: this could be our last week. More truth: we’re hoping not—a few irons are still in the fire.”
Apparently, one of those “irons” was the ability to renegotiate its 10-year lease with Newport on the Levee’s landlord, North American Properties, whom Hall says “were very open and willing to help.”
“They want to see Newport on the Levee not just survive, but they want to see it thrive,” says the 15-year craft brewery veteran. “They were very accommodating, and they helped us out a lot.”
Hall also spoke to local media outlets about how small businesses struggle to stay open.
“The community has really seen that,” he explains. “They haven’t seen it as a sign of weakness, but as a sign of openness that, ‘Hey, you know what? We’re vulnerable. We’re a small business. We’re not a chain restaurant. We don’t have the backing of a bunch of other locations in the country. We’re very small, so please come out and support us.’”
Oddly enough, Hall is known as the Ohio Beer Fast Guy, who spends every Lent only drinking beer and water, and taking vitamins. “People were really surprised that we struggled so much because I’m the famous beer guy,” he says. “They’re like, ‘Well, if anyone’s going to make the Levee work, it’s going to be Del.’”
One reason why the former system didn’t work was because Hall and Burton didn’t have any restaurant experience, and the overhead was too high. They hired a chef to create “elevated” cuisine, but Hall discovered he needed to streamline the menu and offer only a handful of dishes. In addition, he had to downsize the staff from 42 to 10.
“You really need to use ingredients that are cross utilized minimum twice, probably three times in different dishes in that menu,” he says. “We opened up with a vast menu with very eclectic things that we thought were elevated, that gastropub type cuisine the masses and the general public just kind of overlooked. But they wanted the traditional American pub fare.”
The new menu features its signature burger, chicken tenders, and Brussels sprouts. The brewery will also offer a brunch menu, starting later in the morning at 11:30 a.m., because Hall realized people like to sleep in on the weekends. They’ll continue hosting drag brunches and other events, too.
Another issue Hall ran into during the brewery’s former iteration was the lack of name recognition.
“One of the biggest lessons I learned was not to rest on my laurels,” he says. “I thought that opening a second location would just add fuel to the fire. They know us, they know what we’ve done for a period of time in Mason, that 16 Lots carries some weight, and that people would come to our location just because they know who 16 Lots is. When in reality, People are like, ‘What’s 16 Lots?’”
With the brouhaha surrounding the grand opening, hopefully more people will know who they are, but the challenge remains if customers can find the location at the Levee.
Sixteen Lots is located at the farthest point, next to the Purple People Bridge. Most people come to the Levee for the aquarium. (Hall brewed an English IPA called “Where the Levee Ends” to poke fun at the predicament the best way he knew how.)
“It’s probably the worst location you can be in, but in the long term, it’s the best because I have a lot of square footage,” Hall says. “I have a huge patio. We’re right on the river. We have the best views around [for] the WEBN fireworks.”
The brewery even has dog bowls and encourages runners and walkers to come inside to hydrate. “You come in there and you see we have water, and you drink some water, and you’re like, ‘Wow, I’ll come back here at some point.’”
Hall’s also going to be more selective about what live music he books, and he wants people to know the brewery has a cigar lounge. “We’re kind of really building a reputation as a place for cigar smokers to come,” he says.
Going forward, the brewery won’t serve lunch on weekdays and it’ll be closed on Mondays like a lot of other breweries in town.
With the Margaritaville development opening in 2026, more traffic will be coming to the Levee soon, which looks good for 16 Lots and the other nearby retail venues.
“There was a lot of incentive for us to make it through this and get to a point where we can stay open because I’m a firm believer in that a high tide raises all ships, and the more that it’s happening down there, the better,” Hall says.
A ribbon cutting ceremony for 16 Lots Southern Outpost’s grand reopening takes place at 11:30 a.m. on Friday, March 15.
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