After serving the Koreatown community in Los Angeles for eight years, Beer Belly owners Jimmy and Yume Han have decided to close their flagship location while keeping their Downtown Long Beach location open—for now.

Announcing the closure on Twitter, Jimmy said it is “the end of an era” while “after eight years of so many blessings, we feel like we accomplished what we set out to do.”

As to what this means for the future, Jimmy was blunt in that he is entirely unsure whether it will continue to involve him and his family or be someone new.

“Honestly, I don’t know what the plan is yet,” Jimmy said. “We don’t know if it will be us or someone else—but we know it’s time and we know we’re excited for the next story to be told. Simply put, I just don’t know who or what it will be.”

When it comes to their Long Beach location, the Hans have been working intimately with Nashville hot chicken royalty Kim Prince of Hotville who hosted one pop-up which sold out in early June and has another pop-up coming in July. When asked if Long Beach could become home to a permanent Prince establishment, Jimmy was mum.

Beer Belly built a name for itself on two fronts since opening in K-Town in 2011. Its dedication to craft brews was met with an equally strong dedication to great comfort food, where duck fries, pork cheek chili and other decadent essentials defined its menu.

Take their “Crap for Craft” event where customers could bring in “crap beer” from giants like Bud and Miller and, for one cent, get a pour of locally crafted hop’n’malt goodness. (Which makes sense: the Hans hired the cicerone Christina Perozzi—the woman behind Santa Monica’s epic beer offerings at Father’s Office—to train Beer Belly staff.)

At the time, these concepts were refreshingly new and, in this sense, the Hans are right: they helped set the current standard we see in  local craft beer culture.

Beer Belly is located at 255 Long Beach Blvd.

Brian Addison is a columnist and editor for the Long Beach Post. Reach him at [email protected] or on social media at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.