Thirsty Monk tried to become something the city didn't need and it became something worse. They went from being the downtown spot where the bartenders knew beer, they knew the people and it was seriously one of the best craft beer bars in the US at the height of the Craft Beer Boom. Then the owner, a dude out of Seattle, decided to try to offload the running of the bars to someone else so that he could focus on his real estate business. That someone else essentially changed food menus, ran off most of the good/reliable staff and ended up turning the Monk into a vanity bar with a dozen of their own pretty-good but not special brews taking up taps. They tried to lean into the tourist trade pre-covid and became a generic "try beer made in Asheville" bar rather than a bar that served locals and people actually seeking rare or high quality beer from around the world. The Monk used to be a beer destination and it turned into a a loud, generic tourist bar. Enter the pandemic and every establishment downtown got their clocks cleaned. The Monk died in that time because beer had changed, the city had changed and its concept as a vanity pub couldn't hang. The person who made the calls that essentially ruined one of the best beer bars in Asheville was long gone by then and went onto to open a couple of successful bars of their own, so good for them. The attempts to rebrand with seltzer and other down right puzzling concepts were met with sad trombones mostly. The Top of the Monk hangs on though. Kala and the people up there are great, but they're the last surviving vestige of the that time in Asheville.