‘Maybe Tacoma wasn’t ready for a dry bar.’ T-town’s only kombucha taproom to close
Komadre Kombucha will close its Sixth Avenue taproom, the only such nonalcoholic bar in Tacoma, Dec 23. The company, which began as a home-delivery business, will continue to grow that network as well as its bar and retail partners across Pierce County.
“We’re not going anywhere,” said Davidson this week, “but we are leaving the Ave.”
Located in the original home of Ice Cream Social, the part-taproom, part-cafe opened in the spring of 2021. It was a vibrant space with a mural by local artist Marisol Ortega on the main wall and Havana minca tile along the bar. Most everything linked to Davidson’s Panamanian and Cuban heritage, from the Spanish names of each flavor to the makers of jewelry, pottery and more whose work was also for sale there.
She also worked to draw attention to local food and art entrepreneurs through pop-ups at the shop, including vegan sundae parties with Hilltop’s Hunnybun Bakery and open-mic nights. Most recently, she hosted a Caribbean Queens food event with roving restaurants Trini Plate, Bajan Station and Little Miss Sweets NYC. Over the summer she added vegan soft-serve, another unique-to-the-area specialty.
This vibrant new Tacoma taproom is alcohol-free, and it’s awesome
Ultimately, sales never caught up with the cost of maintaining a brick-and-mortar while also producing kombucha for wholesale accounts, home-delivery subscribers and a weekly booth at the Tacoma Farmers Market.
“I created a very unique problem: Distribution has gone so very well that people don’t have to come to the taproom to enjoy Komadre Kombucha,” said Davidson in December.
You can regularly find sips at beer bars, including The Red Hot, Peaks & Pints, both 7 Seas locations, Black Fleet Brewing and Incline Cider House. Neighbor Primo Grill also keeps it on tap, as do ALMA and Rosewood Cafe. As an alumni of the University of Puget Sound, she also sells to the student market and dining halls. Tacoma Boys in South Hill will soon receive its first shipment.
Cutting ties with the Sixth Avenue shop was a bittersweet but necessary decision that “releases the burden of having this enormous overhead to operate something that is so niche, that really just attracts a fraction of our customer base.”
One of her hopes was to be a safe haven for the sober community, in addition to anyone pursuing their own way to wellness. Kombucha has been embraced by the mainstream in the past decade, moving from the coolers of health stores to supermarkets and convenience stores. But the necessary shelf-stability of those bottles denigrates the product’s natural sugars and probiotics. Komadre’s style contains no added sugar, using oolong tea as the foundation for flavors like passionfruit, orange and guava or rhubarb and ginger.
“Maybe Tacoma wasn’t ready for a dry bar!” said Davidson, who is also a graduate of and coach with the Pierce County Business Accelerator program. “Maybe my contribution has been, ‘Hey, here’s a really great product that can help [bars] move in the direction of being sober-inclusive.’”
Originally she had hoped to brew on-site, which “definitely would have been a draw,” she admitted, but hurdles with the health department and building requirements proved not worth fighting. She continues to brew in the same facility as Shen Zen Tea in Seattle.
What will become of 2914 6th Ave. now?
She couldn’t say precisely, but she did say the building owners already have a few promising possibilities.
KOMADRE KOMBUCHA
▪ 2914 6th Ave. taproom: open Wednesday-Sunday 12-4 p.m. through Dec. 23
▪ Subscription/delivery and where to find bottles/drafts: komadrekombucha.com
