Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Addissae Ethiopian Restaurant, which opened only a year ago in downtown Asheville, is seeking crowdfunding support to remain open. Via gofundme.com, Addissae’s owners say they need money to stay open and survive through winter.
When Addissae opened in December 2014, it appeared to answer the years-long call from Asheville food fans seeking an Ethiopian restaurant in Asheville. (DeSoto has been offering Ethiopian food one day a week for several years.) But the Asheville restaurant scene is unforgiving, and Addissae hasn’t been able to generate continuous excitement for its food offerings.
Here’s more from the Addissae gofundme page:
Hi folks! We’re Asheville’s only Ethiopian restaurant and we love our community here. Recently we have depleted our resources and exhausted our funds to keep the restaurant afloat. This year is our first and we’ve found surviving has been a greater challenge than we anticipated. We are reaching out to the community that has been so excited to receive us to help us through the winter, and break through to the place that we need to be!
We would be using these funds for our basic costs such as: rent, utilities, insurance, and fees. Our goal is to use the money we earn in the restaurant to keep our payroll supported. Money donated in the next couple of weeks would help us continue to keep the restaurant running.
Our hearts have been overflowing with the love that’s been brought to both us and Addissae by our awesome customers, community, and friends. The enthusiasm for our food, and the joy we feel from connecting over the unique culture and cuisine has been overwhelming! Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to bring in enough consistent business to stay open and running. We know it would break a lot of hearts, as well as our own, to close our doors now, so we’re hoping to find the same excitement that encouraged us to start an Ethiopian restaurant will be here in your generous donations to keep us alive.
We hope to continue to share our delicious food and live the dream we have had for years. Our gratitude for your support is endless and we want nothing more than to continue to serve you, Asheville!
Addisae is great! I’ve eaten there a couple times. I hope they can pull through or relocate.
Asheville’s “most needed restaurant” for 28 years running is asking for handouts . . . how about cutting your prices in half for the winter, giving away food and then asking for donations or pay-what-you-want pricing? Cater some holiday parties. Actually get people in the door and eating your food since that’s what it’s going to take to survive once you run through the money raised here (which I’m guessing will amount to one or two months of expenses). I’ve been thinking about maybe trying this place, but I haven’t, unfortunately this campaign is making me think it’s not worth it.
It’s great if people believe in this enough to give you free money, but I will be making donations to the nonprofits who help a wide swath of people in Asheville.
how about cutting your prices in half for the winter, giving away food and then asking for donations or pay-what-you-want pricing?
The MountainX story says that they’ve run a bunch of promotions. And the prices aren’t that expensive to begin with. The problem is that nobody’s coming through the door. It’s a place that you don’t generally walk past, but instead one that you have to seek out.
So Russ has it: location, location, location. Even if you know it’s there, parking is a problem with the loss of metered spaces around the DSS lot and the way Wall Street’s full most of the day.
I’ve been thinking about maybe trying this place, but I haven’t, unfortunately this campaign is making me think it’s not worth it.
Well, I hope that sanctimony is nourishing. Let’s see this as primarily a way to get some publicity. In the past, restaurants would go out of business and people would line up to say “oh, I was meaning to give them a visit”. Perhaps Addissae survives, perhaps it needs to look for another location, perhaps the owners have already spent too much money in their first year to do so.
Honestly, why delay the inevitable? A business isn’t a charity.
Location, location, location… They’re competing against so many other downtown restaurants with much, much more prominent locations with tons of pedestrian exposure.
Yes, I agree. Location.
Also there are too many restaurants and if you are on a back street you need a lot of press to keep you afloat or just really amazing food.
Well, they’re getting the press. As for the food, it really is amazing, but Ethiopian food is something you have to be in the mood for.
And knowing that they need some help, I’m in the mood for it. I’ll definitely try to swing by there sometime soon.
We tried to eat at your restaurant in mid November but you were closed. We would have loved to have given you money then. We went to Nine Mile because they were open on a Monday.