The Golden Saying Goodbye
A restaurant run by a recent semi-finalist for a regional James Beard Foundation award is closing Sunday. The Golden, which opened a year-and-a-half ago, is located in the high-profile Ash Skyline Plaza in downtown Fort Wayne. A message posted this week on Facebook thanking guests and staff reads "as we learned, it is difficult to make this kind of dining experience work financially, but it is a necessary step for the restaurant community to move in the direction of sustainability and locality as well as the consumer to realize that these things come with a little higher cost."
The Golden is owned by chefs Sean Richardson and Aaron Butts. The restaurant has focused on "farm-to-fork" cuisine from local, seasonal and sustainable produce with the goal to "operate to the highest standard and offer something fresh and vibrant in Indiana." It adds "we cannot thank the producers enough or say the right words about how they are creating a food community in Fort Wayne, Indiana that rivals any city. It has been important to us and will always remain the top priority as we find our future in the food scene to provide our guests with the absolute best, most seasonal, most sustainable food being produced by people who really have a passion for food systems and the impact they play on societies."
The message concludes with:
No doubt we made some mistakes along the way. We have learned over the past year and will continue to learn in the future to be able to offer the best in food and service to our respected communities. We cannot thank our guests enough for the opportunity to serve you. We have made numerous new friends through opening this restaurant and we will sincerely miss every single person who continuously showed up for the party on wayne. Serving all of you is the biggest reward we have gotten from The Golden and for that we will forever be grateful. One last big giant thank you to all staff, past and present, for investing time into The Golden. One last huge giant enormous thank you to every local producer who showed up to our back door to inspire what we do.
We love you all.
You can read the full message by clicking here.