Taproom Managers of Brewer’s Row • Part 2: Heather Dunkin
April 1, 2026
Intro to the Three Part Series:
Brewer’s Row in downtown Charleston, West Virginia, has been a tremendous success in establishing the city as the top craft beer destination in the state. The Row consists of this brewery trio: Bad Shepherd Beer Co., Fife Street Brewing, and Short Story Brewing-Charleston.
Following more than a decade having only one small brewpub downtown, these three local beer outlets have together transformed the city’s downtown craft beer landscape and accelerated Charleston’s craft beer status.
Yes, you need a good brewer to make good beer, and all three Brewer’s Row breweries have that covered. However, this three-part BrilliantStream series introduces the individual at each brewery taproom who leads their taproom to a successful outcome. We’re talking about the taproom manager.
The following article, which is second in the series, introduces one of these exceptional taproom managers.
Heather Dunkin
Short Story Brewing-Charleston
“I am a people person,” says Heather Dunkin, “and I like meeting the different people that come to Charleston’s Brewer’s Row.
“People come here from all over the United States. They’ll stop here, and I’ll ask them why came. They tell me that they looked it up online to see if there were any breweries here.”
A lifelong journey
Heather Dunkin grew up in the Charleston, WV, area, and as a youngster, she says she wanted to be federal prosecuting attorney when she grew up. As most of us know, career goals have a way of changing through the years.
While attending college in Washington, DC, and in Charleston, she paid her way through school working as a bartender and restaurant server. She couldn’t have expected back then that her bartending experience would later lead her to managing one of the hottest brewery taprooms in the state: Short Story Brewing-Charleston.
What kept her working in the restaurant business during her college days? She found the flexibility of the schedule was attractive.
“You can work two shifts serving or bartending, and it gives you the flexibility to attend college classes and make decent money,” she explained. Also, she said a server/bartender schedule typically provided some flexible study times.
Bennigan’s and Joey’s
After paying her dues as a restaurant server, she found a home behind the Bennigan’s bar in Charleston Town Center Mall, which at the time was an extremely popular establishment in the Charleston region. The Charleston store was one of the top producing Bennigan’s in the company. In her seven years there, Heather ended up being a key employee, doing the bar ordering, staff scheduling, and assisting the general managers.
She also spent eight years working at Joey’s, a popular locally-owned restaurant & bar near the Charleston Convention Center. During her time there, Joey’s was one of the busiest night-spots around. It also had very active lunch and dinner hours.
Heather says working at Bennigan’s was a great training ground. “It was very corporate. It was very regimented, but you learned about service and about the importance of running a clean establishment.”
What she learned as a worker at these popular spots was how to provide, not just good service, but efficient service. While she always got a charge from working under the pressure of the business, she also reminisces with a smile about parts of the job that were her least favorite.
“Things like scrubbing the floors at three o’clock in the morning; rolling up the bar mats; scrubbing those trash cans; having your manager inspect the bar and if there’s a piece of gum stuck underneath the bar, crawling under there to get it before you leave for the evening,” she recounts.
With her restaurant experience in hand, Heather next moved into the staffing industry for a number of years with MTI and CDI in Charleston. These were companies that provided a lot of engineering and technical employees to local West Virginia industries. She then took her staffing industry skills to work in the Philadelphia market for a period. While there, she learned to love craft beer when she started going to Iron Hill Brewing taprooms.
Return to Charleston
In 2022, life changes brought her back to Charleston, where she was living in the downtown area. One day, she happened to be walking on Summers Street and noticed a man inside a storefront remodeling the interior. Curious, she asked around and discovered that the place was going to be a new brewery taproom.
“So I went in and said, ‘Are you hiring?’” she explains.
She got the job and immediately began helping complete the buildout of Short Story Brewing’s Charleston taproom. She helped finish staining the newly constructed wooden bar. She scrubbed construction residues off the floor and helped with a myriad of other tasks prepping the place for its opening. Short Story Brewing’s Charleston taproom would open two weeks later. This was in November 2022.
In 2024, following the departure of the original manager, Heather stepped up to become the full-time taproom manager for Short Story. The taproom soon saw operational tweaks as Heather began putting her mark on its practices and business model.
Beyond greatly amping up the musical entertainment provided, she took time to learn more about the many aspects of a small brewery business. She says that managing a brewery taproom is different from managing the bar at your everyday restaurant. Number one, she says, is that you have to be very knowledgeable about your beers. And a co-number one is you have to take care of your taps.
For instance, back during Heather’s previous years in the bar business, your beer distributors cleaned and took care of your beer lines and taps, but state beer regulations now no longer permit them to do that.
“Now, if I have a leak in a beer line, I have to repair it,” she says. A taproom manager has to be pretty much a jack of all trades.
The coming of food service
For its first year, Short Story’s Charleston taproom did not serve food.
“The customers that came in here when we only had beer, they either loved craft beer, or thought they didn’t like craft beer that much and they would leave.”
Following the addition of Lefty’s Place – Detroit-style pizza, a vendor that set up shop in the taproom’s kitchen space, many more customers came in and stayed longer. This gave Heather and the bar staff more opportunities to find ways to introduce customers to beers that they would like.
“We do have great food here,” she says. “When someone orders pizza, it’s important to ask, ‘How about an Argonaut’ or ‘How about a Kölsch.’ That’s another way, another vehicle to introduce people to craft beer. And our new Falcon Fest Amber Lager, now, you can’t go wrong with that and a pizza.”
Practicing the art of beer service
“One challenge at a brewery taproom is that new customers are always coming in who have never had any of the craft beers that they find on tap,” Heather says. “If someone walks in and says they like Michelob Ultra, you have to make a good suggestion.”
“You’ve got to ask them, ‘What do you normally drink,’ and ‘What do you like about it?’” she explains. “And then, you take that into your mind and interpret it, give them a sample, and if they like it, they end up ordering two or three pints of it.”
At a craft brewery taproom, servers need to know their beers and something about how they’re made. It’s not easy to master, but it’s important.
“You really have to know your hops,” she says about one requirement of working in a taproom with a lot of IPAs. “You have to know what they taste like. Whether you like them or not, you have to know what the tasting notes are.”
Staffing customer service
As a taproom manager—as good as you may be—you can’t do all the work yourself. You also have to hire a competent staff. Heather is on top that too.
“What I look for in staff is first someone who has waited on me before so I know what their customer service is. We get very busy in here.
“It’s very important to service every customer so that they are greeted on time and that they’re given the attention they need. You better be able to engage with them, make them feel comfortable.
“We’re one of the top craft brewers in the state. You gotta tell them that story.
“Our story is the best story. It’s a small business that’s grown. We do most everything in-house, including building brewery expansions and building out taprooms. It’s a family business, grassroots, organically grown.”
Favorite Beers
A taproom manager must know their beers very well. Heather samples them all as fresh kegs are added to the taps. Yes, she has some personal favorites. Right now, she says they include Short Story’s Pivate Italian Pilsner, Chasing Daylight IPA, Echo Echo Echo Double IPA, Broad Shoulders Stout on Nitro, and for warm weather, Beaches of Appalachia Mexican Lager.
Because today’s taproom customer often has interests in beverages beyond craft beer, a taproom manager needs to be more broadly familiar with the popular drinks of the day. In that vane, Heather says she especially enjoys her taproom’s red wine and Prosecco, and also Spa Water (a non-alcoholic hopped-water beverage from Berkeley Springs Brewing). She also says she’s seeing non-alcoholic beers becoming more popular. In that view, she really likes offering the Sierra Nevada Trail Pass NA line.
Heather says Short Story’s overall best sellers at the Charleston taproom include the flagships Chasing Daylight IPA and Room to Room IPA; Argonaut Helles Lager, and the Fun With Prisms fruited sours.
Changes in local craft beer market
Over the past few years, Heather has seen big changes in the local craft beer market—and she thinks it’s expanding in the Charleston area.
“When we first opened, the taproom had some people here; now we have a lot of people.” Beyond great beer, she feels the growth is partly due to the impact of promoting Brewer’s Row, and the success it’s had.
She’s seen a big difference on Summers Street led by Brewer’s Row and the renewed Slack Plaza with it’s year-round entertainment programming.
“More people are coming downtown for the craft beer experience and entertainment. Downtown is welcoming. We’ve got a lot of people in this community who want to continue to grow the craft beer scene.”
She’s loved seeing the craft beer culture take root in Charleston.
Growing a family business
“I enjoy working for Short Story Brewing because they are a family business that continues to grow’” Heather says.
She makes this observation about the brewery’s owners: “Aaron, Abby, and Michael all row the boat in the same direction. It’s a great company to work for. When you work for a business and you see senior leadership giving their all, all the time, you want to be a part of that. It’s contagious.”
She also credits the creativity and care of the brewing team for Short Story’s success. “We have some geniuses brewing at Short Story.”
Heather’s Keys To Success
“Know your product, be open and love your customer base. Be detail oriented.
If you’re a good employee for me, you’re always 360-ing it.
Never walk back to the bar or kitchen with your hands empty,
and never come out with our hands empty.“
Short Story Brewing – Charleston
186 Summers Street
Charleston, WV
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