The last thing my business shared publicly was this…
A quick recap for those who were here with us last time our walk-in cooler went down about a month ago. What we thought was a refrigerant leak turned out to be a bigger issue. We made a repair at the time, but we also lost all of our food and had to repurchase every cold ingredient to get back up and running — that was the majority of the cost we were working to recover.
Unfortunately, that repair didn’t hold, and now the compressor has failed completely. The good news is we caught it in time this round, so all of our food is safe and moved into backup coolers. It’s not ideal, but the kitchen is fighting to make it work and we’ll stay open. We are so grateful for this team. They just don’t give up.
Regardless, this repair is coming in at well over $20,000, and after everything else we’ve been through, that feels pretty overwhelming.
Because of this, we won’t have draft beer or cider this weekend. That part we can’t work around. I’m on my way to Hoodsport now to grab cans from Potlatch so we’ll still have cold beer for you — just not on tap.
We know many of you showed up for us the last time this happened, and we can’t thank you enough for that. If you’re able to come out again this weekend, grab a meal, a drink, or just stop by, it really does make a difference. If nothing else, it reminds me why I need to keep fighting here. It reminds me we’re not alone, and what we do here matters.
That is where it stands at this very moment.
And this is where I am.
I knew chasing a dream would be hard. I knew doing something this risky, this bold, this uncertain would take courage, passion, energy, and a thick enough skin to accept that success was never guaranteed.
And if I failed, I believed I’d be strong enough to take the hit, learn the lesson, and move forward wiser… with the comfort of knowing at least I tried. That I didn’t fail because I was too scared to try. I failed because sometimes the odds really are what they say they are.
But this hasn’t been that.
A pandemic. A fire. Insurance rates that skyrocketed after the fire. Family deaths. Lupus. Cancer. Equipment failure on top of equipment failure. And honestly, I can’t even remember everything anymore, because the past six years have been a storm of tragedy and disaster around us.
To say it’s been an uphill battle doesn’t even come close.
It’s felt like a constant beating to our hearts, our minds, our bodies.
Like the universe has been screaming at us to stop. To get off this path.
And I don’t know anymore… is this just another test? Or is it a warning?
When do you throw in the towel?
And how do you ever know you truly tried everything… and it just wasn’t in the cards?
That’s where Tom and I are.
We don’t want to stop prematurely. But we also don’t want to let this take away what chance we have left at a healthy future.
At some point, choosing to keep taking the hits starts to feel selfish.
Are we hurting our daughter’s future by continuing down this path?
Or are we hurting the people who have believed in us by giving up?
These are the questions we keep asking ourselves.
I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know what direction forward even looks like right now.
Maybe this is just life. Choosing to keep going, no matter the cost.
Maybe that’s the lesson I’m supposed to teach my kid.
But what if I’m wrong?
Before she was here, this dream was for the little girl I used to be, the one who didn’t have a clear path, just a pull to follow something bigger than logic.
Then Grace came, and that direction had a name and a face.
All I can hope is that she understands one day… that even when I didn’t have the answers, I really did try to do what I believed was right for her.
In the end, she’s always been my North Star.
For now, we’re still here. And we’re still trying.