EuroPub owner Witold Szczepaniak knows the answer.

“31? That means fuck off,” the European beer importer and operator of one of Capitol Hill’s more under the radar drink spots tells CHS.

Szczepaniak says his Broadway beer pub will be closing later this month after the management company for the Dick’s-adjacent former quick mart building his joint overhauled in 2015 responded to his attempts to negotiate a lease renewal with the huge proposed jump in rent.

He hopes to find a new spot. In the meantime, expect increasing discounts on the tap and bottle shop as it approaches a planned January 20th closing party.

Jumping rents on Broadway shouldn’t be a surprise. Many merchants along the core of the Capitol Hill artery have been bracing for the end of their leases following the opening of Capitol Hill Station in 2016. But Szczepaniak said he was surprised that the end of construction of the neighboring mixed-use project at Broadway and Denny — where a new Starbucks cafe will soon open — seemed to be the catalyst for the increased ask for EuroPub’s space. “They’ve been waiting for was construction was finished so they can raise rents,” he said. He expects the building might be the next to be sold for redevelopment.

Szczepaniak built EuroPub out of the old Super 97 Cent market into a bottle shop and beer room. “It’s an idea that has been in the back of my head,” Szczepaniak said about his Capitol Hill pub. “We need to educate people about the really good beer and thousands of years of history.”

Now, he says, he feels most sorry for customers and his employees.

The beer man says he hasn’t given up on Capitol Hill and hopes to reopen in the neighborhood. “I love this area,” Szczepaniak said. “This is the best place. This is the place to be.”