The patio at Bissell Brothers’ Three Rivers Taproom in Milo. Courtesy of Bissell Brothers Bissell Brothers Brewing plans to close its Three Rivers location in Milo at the end of the summer, its owners wrote in an open letter to their customers on the company’s website. “This has been the hardest decision we’ve ever had to come to grips with as owners of Bissell Brothers,” the long and detailed letter from Noah, Peter and Hester Bissell reads.
The Bissells opened the brewery, taproom and restaurant in their rural Piscataquis County hometown in 2018. In January, its chef, Joe Robbins, was named a semifinalist for a James Beard Award. “Our long-term goal was of course to eventually make Three Rivers a viable, self-sustaining arm of Bissell Brothers,” the brothers wrote.
“Unfortunately, this hope has never come to fruition. With each investment and expansion of BB3R, always in pursuit of a sustainable future, the business itself became exponentially more costly to operate. Despite what always felt like our best efforts and likely has had the outward appearance of a thriving business, our Three Rivers location has always cost more to operate than it generated in income.
While we were able to absorb this loss for the better part of the last decade, a variety of economic factors both internal and external to our business have regrettably made this impossible to continue.” The brothers’ letter explains that like many craft breweries around the country, “our bott.