Water’s End Brewery expands to Fredericksburg (with a chicken partner)

Water’s End Brewery, started by a former Fairfax County police officer in 2016 with its first location in Lake Ridge, Virginia, in 2016, will open a third location in a historic building in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Its second location, in Woodbridge, opened in 2020.



The Fredericksburg brewery will open in Fredericksburg Square, a historic building originally built as a town house in 1854. It has since served as an Elks Lodge, a restaurant and most recently a high-end wedding venue.

Water’s End’s Zach Mote partnered with Mike Sarago, owner of Hot Chikn Kitchn in Woodbridge, to buy the building. It will be home to Hot Chikn Kitchn’s second location for its Nashville-style hot chicken restaurant.

Water’s End Brewery is opening a new location in Fredericksburg in the historic Fredericksburg Square building. (Courtesy Water’s End Brewery)

The brewery and restaurant have not set a firm opening date, though they aim to open sometime this spring. Fredericksburg Square will include two ballrooms and two bars.

When Water’s End opened its second brewery and taproom in Woodbridge, at Potomac Festival Shopping Center, it more than tripled the company’s brewing capacity to more than 1,000 barrels a year. It maxed out its brewing capacity at the original location, at Dillingham Square in Lake Ridge, in 2019.

Jeff Clabaugh

Jeff Clabaugh has spent 20 years covering the Washington region's economy and financial markets for WTOP as part of a partnership with the Washington Business Journal, and officially joined the WTOP newsroom staff in January 2016.

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