Corner Pub in The Nations has ceased operations after a three-year run following the dissolving of the ownership entity due to a controversial social media incident.
The bar opened in 2017 at 1105 51st Ave. N. and was housed in a church structure that was built 1950s.
Jeff Estepp owns the building from which the restaurant/bar operated. Estepp and Jeremy Palmer, the latter of whom owns and operates the original Corner Pub in Green Hills, have been business partners at Corner Pub in The Nations. However, two recent since-deleted Twitter posts spurred Estepp to cease operations. Of note, Corner Pub in The Nations, at its official closing last week, had been open at 50 percent capacity for about three weeks following COVID-19 concerns.
The incident involved two tweets from the Corner Pub in Green Hills Twitter account that Estepp feels are insensitive to some of the local protesters related to the recent George Floyd death. The tweets have since been deleted, and the account @CornerPubGH is now locked.
The tweets in question — which can be seen here — referred to protesters, many of them African American, as “animals,” and encouraged motorists to not take caution when driving near Black Lives Matter protesters (some have interpreted the tweet as a recommendation to drive into the crowds).
Estepp has no ownership in Corner Pub in Green Hills. He posted the following on a social media account related to residents of The Nations, referring to a meeting with Palmer:
“My partner and I met in person at my office to discuss the situation he has created, and I let him know that I did not condone his actions. I decided that the correct thing to do is to close the Corner Pub in The Nations immediately and to move forward with dissolving the [business] partnership immediately.”
