Livelyhood pub in Port Moody is dead.
The St. Johns Street pub, which took over the location of the former Brew Street Craft Kitchen in 2021, shut its doors without an announcement earlier this week.
Its social media accounts, which had been promoting upcoming events and even a kids-eat-free promotion for the month of January as recently as last week, are closed as well.
The pub’s closure follows the shuttering of the adjoining Port Moody Liquor Store late last year.
Livelyhood was operated by the Joseph Richard Group (JRG) that filed for creditor protection last July. In its petition to B.C. Supreme Court, the company blamed the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for its struggles.
In 2021, JRG co-founder and CEO Ryan Moreno pivoted several of the company’s locations — including Livelyhood — into pop-up garden centres.
He said the ancillary parking lot business was a way to keep revenue flowing and staff employed during public health shutdowns.
“Our business is as much about creating an environment that builds relationships,” Moreno told the Tri-City News.
“It’s more about the community we create.”
In 2020, Langley-based Berezan Hospitality Group, that had operated Brew Street and continued to run the beer and wine store until its closure, was rebuffed by the city in its application to open a cannabis retail shop called the Astrology Bud Store at the same location.
In 2018, Berezan’s parent company, Berezan Management, pitched a redevelopment of the site that would have seen the construction of three residential towers of 20, 24 and 26 storeys atop podiums with more than 50,000 sq. ft of commercial space.
- with a file from Vikki Hui, Glacier Media
