Tried the sign again, this time they are calling it a “Generic Business” that just seems lazy.
Rats!
Your experience illustrates how difficult it can be to get a bar/restaurant type of nomination accepted.
In the guidelines where Niantic excludes adult-only services and venues it should be clear that they are trying to avoid bad press and legal trouble. Nobody wants to be blamed for creating an attractive nuisance that lures the underaged into any kind of trouble.
This craft brewery does not represent the type of environment that would lead to those problems. The difficulty that is faced is that any voting pool (Machine Learning, In-house reviewers, or the community) might glance at some part of the nomination and make a snap decision.
These things can wind up taking several tries and appeals before they work out properly, but they are not impossible. They require perseverance, however: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
Perhaps use ‘Stone Silo’ as the title. Your photo of the stone wall and taps as the primary photo. I am unsure how things are laid out as far as making the support photo, but after you gain acceptance you could add and vote up the picture of the actual silo.
Use the concepts that can be found on their web site to convey the social experiences that can be found there:
Picnicking and food trucks, pop-up tents, children and pets with supervision. The Stone Silo is a great place to experience farm-to-table life.
I have 5 other nominations related to the brewery in voting. I’m just crossing my fingers that at least one will be accepted. The winery “61 Vineyard” just up the hill has a stop, so not sure why getting just one for this brewery is so hard…other than me being bad at Wayfarer contributions…lol.
Good luck in trying with this. They are certainly places that will get a different response in a different part of the world. I can’t imagine many issues with this in the U.K. especially as you are crafting a good nomination.
Lol yeah in the UK this would likely go straight through! Pubs too- one of the easiest accepts going!
Sad this is being so hard. Fingers crossed it’s accepted soon
Did your decision email say “the community” or “our team”?
Trying to figure out if your best option is to resubmit or to appeal.
The sign was denied by the team. The beer taps was denied by the community.
“Unfortunately, the community has decided…”
“Unfortunately, our team has decided…”
I am not telling you that this will definitely be accepted, but if the ML model is now rejecting the sign photo, you may have better luck appealing this nomination. If you do an appeal, be sure not to assume that they know what this is, and be sure to explain all the ways you can think of to express how this is not a generic business. Good luck with this!
Yea I agree, I have a few more in “voting” so when the dust settles I’m going to try to appeal one of the “community denied” ones that I think is most valid. What makes all this worse is that there is a winery called “61 Vineyard” just about 200 yards away that has a Pokestop.
I’m with @cyndiepooh on this one. If you wish to appeal, appeal the machine-learning of ‘the team’, and provide all the good detail that can be found on Stone Silo’s website.
Emily wants a tight photo of just the sign (maybe a smidge of background that the machine can use to place the shot on Google Maps) but might have hiccuped over the word ‘Brewery’. In your case, you were using the sign as a proxy for the whole venue, which provides a plethora of exploration and socializing. You want a Niantic human to understand that this is not a place to get wrecked.
The Wayfarer community hates perspective-shots as primary photos. They regard them as tilted, sideways, upside-down. If you re-nominate, I’d use the ‘Golden Taps’ photo as the primary, and try to back away or get a wider view that includes them from a door or entryway or something for placement.
Somehow, nobody minds if you add a perspective shot in after approval, they’re just square about reviewing. 
If you’re just sick with frustration since it should not be this hard, take a break. You might return with a different approach like nominating a bocce court or horse-shoes that you find there on the grounds.
Slightly off topic for an issue i’m dealing with, but it involves a brewery. There’s a pokestop that was submitted years ago and approved for “Hoppy Time Mural”, but the location is across the street in an apartment complex, you can’t even swipe the pokestop when you’re standing at the mural. Any suggestions? I’ve tried modifying the location several times and it’s been denied. The mural is inside the brewery.
Find your rejection email and put an edit rejection appeal in help chat as described here Introducing Edit Appeals in the Wayfarer Help Chat
Don’t hesitate to use the evidence field to show where the correct location is.
Sadly, even though I tried about everything. They all got denied many by “the team” which is even worse. Many just say “Wayfarer Criteria”. I’m going to try to really refine my descriptions and maybe pull some professional pictures of the brewery from the internet rather than take pictures myself.
It really sucks that they have a problem with the “Stone Silo”…of “Stone Silo Brewery” being a stop, makes no sense to me.
I would advise against using pictures from the internet for main or support 
Yep, using third party photos is a rejection reason and a guaranteed reject.
Your pictures look great to me, and nominations have to use your own pictures regardless
I have heard a theory that putting a nomination on hold for a few days before submitting can help it bypass the AI voting, and get it in front of humans instead. I don’t know if that’s true but it could be worth a try? Anecdotally it has worked.
I feel like humans would see the social aspect of a brewery with a bar for people to go and try the beer. Do they do beer tasting evenings etc? That kind of thing would provide more support to the social aspect which I assume is the criteria you’re going for?
I will try putting them on hold, I assume it would also allow me to review/edit my title and desciptions when sitting down at a computer…giving me a chance to refine them.
Yes - that’s another great thing about the hold feature that you can fine tune things first, look up web links for supporting info, fix typos, etc.
I didn’t used to need that since stuff would stay in the queue for months, but nowadays its really useful.