Grindhaus Is Closing. I’m Sad.

Sausages are the new black here in LA with Wurstküche, Berlin Currwurst, Wirsthaus, and Currywurst all jockeying for position. Sadly, the sausage wars have taken their first casualty: Grindhaus, a great, small shop that sold absolutely delicious sausages. The outfit sent out a newsletter just minutes ago announcing that the “Sausagpocalypse” had arrived. Yes, Grindhaus is closing, thanks to a bit of bad timing with investments and personal tragedy on their end.

Originally, the shop had intended to extend its brand with a food truck, but that plan mysteriously folded after about a month. According to the newsletter, the owners then tried to transition from shop to eatery, but again, that fell apart too.

And so here we are: Grindhaus has indeed come to a grinding halt. Thanks for the amazing sausages! I will always, always fondly remember the duck, chocolate, and cherry sausage. Come back soon, y’hear!

After the jump, the full Grindhaus goodbye.

All GoodThings…

We know it’s been awhile since you last heard from us on the newsletter front. We’re sure you missed our biting wit and fondness for double entendre. Truthfully, that’s what drew us to the sausage business in the first place. So many jokes. And for those who signed up but were never compensated for volunteering their virtual inbox; this is for you.

While we were neglecting our interweb marketing duties we were working on something of equal importance: trying to prevent The Sausagpocalypse. As cool as that sounds, really, its not. For us it means the end of the line for Grindhaus Sausage…for now. “The little sausage shop that could” won’t be able to anymore. That doesn’t mean you’ll never see us again. We’re taking our cue from Mr. Herman Cain and suspending our sausage campaign.

Its ok. Take a deep breath. Stop hitting yourself in the head. We promise everything will be alright.

First thing we want you to know is that it’s not your fault. You guys were the engine that drove us. We had some of the most dedicated customers we’ve seen in our two decades in the food service industry. It was you who kept us around this long.

Truth is, after we sold our truck we knew in order for Grindhaus to survive as a brand we’d have to grow the concept beyond our small Hollywood shop. And we felt like we had the foundation to do that. So, we took our idea of unique, fresh, house made sausages, pickles and mustards, fleshed it out a little and turned it into a business plan for full service restaurant and bar with a beer & wine bar. An American Sausage House is what we called it and for awhile it seemed like it actually might happen. We lined up a couple investors and started scouting out potential locations for our new “haus”. But life has a funny way about it. After having to deal with a bit of personal tragedy we reconvened only to find out that opportunity had passed us by. In addition to that, we were out of time.

That brings us to now. But before we go we wanted to make sure we properly thanked all of our customers. This was our first small business and in addition to being one of the best times of our lives we learned some very important lessons. You all made that possible. Small businesses are the lifeblood of our great nation. They are the risk takers. They are the innovators. Please continue to support them wherever and whenever you can.

Over the next couple days we’ll be shutting down operations at the shop. We hung on as long we could. But this Friday and possibly Saturday we plan on selling out for the last time. We hope to see you there.

Best,

The Grindhaus Guys
Thomas Lambiase & Trevor Rocco