Announcing the closure of West Sacramento
Hi folks, been a bit since our last blog post here.
It's been a tumultuous few years, with COVID to thank for much of it. With COVID, at first came uncertainty of whether or not we would be allowed to continue operating during the shutdown. Thankfully, our status as a "food supplier" established us as an essential business in the eyes of California, and we kept chugging along.
After that, we saw a sharp reduction in customers, followed by a boom while everyone was stuck at home. Then another slowdown during the economic downturn during COVID, and then another boom as life returned to normal and more people were permitted to work from home. This up-and-down, rollercoaster-like sales trends persisted, and is something we still contend with today.
Now, coupled with many various difficulties; including the economic environment, rising cost of our supplies, supply-chain difficulties, and the slowly shrinking number of homebrewers in the US, we are faced with a difficult environment for our business.
As some of you may have already seen on our social media accounts, this increasingly difficult market has factored in our decision to close the West Sacramento Brewmeister. It was no easy decision to do so, and it weighs heavily on us, as the West Sac location was such a large and essential component of our business for so long. But ultimately, it was the correct and necessary decision we believe.
The Folsom location, our home base, will persist. Nor is it in any imminent danger of closure. We will continue to operate our online shop as normal, and extend thanks to our dedicated and valued customers. With that all said; we wish to extend a personal plea: if you value what we provide, the ability to come in, ask questions, see the products, seek advice, feedback, and guidance; please shop local, if only some of the time.
We work very hard to be competitive with online stores; in pricing and in customer service. That being said, we also must acknowledge that big-name online retailers provide certain benefits to their consumers that make them difficult to compete against. It is our hope that the benefits of direct contact with our employees that we offer our customers outweighs that of big-name online retailers. If you agree, spending locally here will assure we remain a resource available to local brewers, winemakers, and other zymurgist.
If you have any questions, please reach out to our Folsom location. Otherwise, we'll continue business as normal in Folsom, and hope to see you there. Cheers!
-Erik, Ray, Owen, and the rest of the Brewmeister staff