Asheville sake maker Blue Kudzu to close

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Sad news from Blue Kudzu on FB.

Blue Kudzu Sake Company to Close…
With heavy hearts we have to announce that the Sake will stop flowing at Blue Kudzu Sake Company on 4/18/2015. Blue Kudzu Sake Company began with four friends, a supper club and a passion for food and Sake. In the past few years we have garnered national and international attention, including having our sake featured in Dancyu Magazine (Japan’s national food and wine magazine). We are proud that we have developed a dedicated customer base, however despite the positive reception of our products, we have failed to secure a large enough market share to make our operation profitable. In addition, an extended and lengthy permitting process prevented our products from reaching the market in a timely manner, depleting our cash reserves, and setting the stage for a collapse due to under capitalization. Once we were able to get our sake to market, we just were not able to create enough sales to hit a breakeven point or replenish our cash reserves. Our location, at the very edge of the River Arts District, proved troublesome as well, with a lack of foot traffic in the evenings, which is essential for any restaurant to survive. At this time, with rice prices set to double due to the California drought, with overhead that is disproportionate to revenues, and with restaurant profit margins at an all-time low nationally, we have come to the difficult decision to close the doors and retool.
We wish at this time to say thank you to all of our local fans and customers, as well as the travelers that made their way down the edge of the R.A.D. just to try our products. We appreciate and thank the restaurants and stores across NC that carried our Sake in their establishments. It has been an amazing journey the last three and a half years leading up to this moment, we have made some great friends and contacts in the Sake world both domestically, and abroad. We have enjoyed educating customers and are proud to have helped spread love and awareness for this ancient beverage. For the future, we are going to explore opening a small production only facility to continue production of our hand crafted Sake, however, for now we will be taking time to regroup and formulate a new plan for moving forward.
At this time, as a thank you to all of our fans and supporters we will be having a warehouse sale to liquidate our current Sake inventory. All bottles will be 50% off Thursday through Saturday of this week (4/16-4/18). Bottles can be purchased to go, and there will be an additional 10% discount for purchases of 6 or more bottles. Saturday, April 18th will also be our official last day of business. For more information visit bluekudzusake.com.
–Kanpai
The Blue Kudzu Team