UPDATE, 2/22: Urban Garden Brewing becomes the area’s first Black-owned brick and mortar brewery! More soon.
When Right Proper Brewing Company announced plans for a second brewpub in Eckington about two years ago, the fate of their original location was an open question, resolved when the brewery came to an agreement with its landlord on T Street NW in Shaw, signing a month-to-month lease. They’ve now operated for over a year that way.
On Thursday, February 19, Right Proper’s co-owners and co-founders Leah and Thor Cheston announced that Right Proper’s Shaw brewpub, where the brewery got its start, would close on March 1, 2026, after 12-plus years. The Chestons will open a Right Proper restaurant, not a brewpub, in a space that–cryptically–used to house a restaurant. The Eckington location has been delayed, but will hopefully open in the summer of 2026.
The brewing equipment in Shaw will remain. We think this is because Urban Garden Brewing, which was unable to open near the Ft. Totten metro station, will take over the Shaw space. In December, UGB founder Eamoni Collier posted the following statement via Instagram:
“Due to a combination of factors including ongoing design delays, challenges accessing additional funding, and the current political and economic climate, our Fort Totten lease has ultimately been terminated. We were preparing to begin construction in late October and worked diligently to bring the project to the finish line, but circumstances beyond our control prevented us from moving forward as planned…. Urban Garden Brewing is not over. The mission, the heart, and the community that built it are still here. Weeks after losing Fort Totten, I am still reminded to keep believing. I can’t share more yet, but I can say this: every ending makes space for a new beginning.”
On Wednesday, February 18, the UGB account posted a photo of keys in a hand, presumably Collier’s. We are a beer-focused publication, but not focused enough to definitively declare the floor in the background of this photo to be that of Right Proper Shaw. Nevertheless, the timing lines up. Collier declined to comment, as did the Chestons, but the pairing of UGB and Shaw makes sense as Collier’s former brewery job was at the Shaw location.
Over the next two weeks, we encourage you to get to Right Proper Shaw to try some old stalwarts and some new beers that the last brewer-in-residence, Favio Garcia, has made. The hilariously titled “Favio Favio Favio” is a wonderful tipple. The Belgian-style tripel sports fruity esters bursting with firm phenolics. The beer was fermented with a Belgian strain of yeast and was named by Leah Cheston.
The DC Beer crew has brewed more at Right Proper Shaw than any other brewery, including a collaboration with Black Brew Movement, Cuffing Saison; Corner Czech, a dark lager brewed with LaTreace Harris; and The Ruby Bridge last winter with the Black Brew Movement and the Womxn’s Brew Culture Club. If we’re right about Urban Garden, we hope they will have us back in the brewhouse soon. (Shameless plug: we’ve joined forced with the Black Brew Movement once again. See us at metrobar this Sunday, February 22.)
The Chestons are not yet ready to announce the location of their restaurant, but we have a feeling the residents of Brookland will hoist a pint in the near future.
Co-written by Jacob Berg and Michael Stein.
