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As we reported last week, Dry January can be rough on the liquor industry. ForeLand Beer shuttered its Buckman neighborhood taproom at the end of December, and now a Portland-based distillery has followed suit, albeit for different reasons.
The Aimsir Distilling Company announced through social media on Thursday, Jan. 2 that its tasting room and adjacent restaurant, the Emerald Room are closed. The post discloses that Aimsir (pronounced “aim-sure”) nearly closed two years earlier, but that a collaboration with chef Cyrus Ichiza and his vegan concept, Jade Rabbit, helped the women-owned distillery stay afloat.
“Through collaboration with Chef Ichiza and the launch of the concept of Jade Rabbit, we found a renewed sense of purpose,” Aimsir’s social media post reads.
The post goes on to reference “substantial operational and financial challenges” that have led to Aimsir’s predicament, as well as “meaningful progress toward establishing a workers’ collective—a vision centered on shared ownership and accountability.”
Comments for the closure post are disabled on Instagram, but upset commenters on Aimsir’s other posts fill in another side of the story.
“Trying to legalese all of Jade Rabbit’s employees on the hook for rent and business bills is not employee minded or cooperative,” one commenter wrote on Monday, Jan. 6, on an Aimsir post from September. “That, in addition to your post stating that owners had to come in and cover financials (yes, that’s what business owners do,) paints a picture of someone trying to squeeze money out of minimum wage workers when the business is not profitable.”
“Shame on you for taking advantage of the people who work for you, trying to pressure them into unstable financial circumstances and punishing them for looking out for themselves!” another wrote on the same post on Sunday.
The Jade Rabbit’s Instagram account also illuminates other frustrations.
On Dec. 29, the restaurant’s official account posted that Aimsir ownership allegedly tried to pressure Jade Rabbit staff to form an LLC to take over their business from the distillery and sign a non-disclosure agreement with the owners, after restaurant employees presented them with a petition “calling for full transparency regarding [Aimsir’s] finances.”
Ichiza first paired with Aimsir for a pop-up in July 2022 near Portland’s LGBTQ+ Pride season. Both Eater and Portland Monthly wrote glowing coverage of Jade Rabbit as a vegan dim sum restaurant. Eater in particular highlighted Jade Rabbit’s too-cute-to-eat rabbit-free bunny dumplings.
A GoFundMe campaign to raise $11,000 in lost wages for Jade Rabbit employees has now raised more than half of its posted goal. A post from Jan. 7 on Jade Rabbit’s Instagram account reveals that former employees are working with an attorney regarding their dispute with Aimsir, and to recover lost benefits including “for compensation for denied PTO, sick time, our 401K’s being frozen and discrepancies for labor unpaid.” They have also formed a new LLC and are looking to finalize reopening in a new location soon.
“The outpouring of support is so relieving but the reality of the stress, long hours organizing and physically moving all of our property out of Aimsir into storage has taken a giant toll on my social batteries,” a portion of the post personally attributed to Ichiza reads. “I haven’t been able to move so quickly without the help of the community.”