Rabbit’s Foot Meadery moving from Sunnyvale after 25 years
After a quarter-century of fermentation magic, turning honey and water into an elixir, the owners of the Rabbit’s Foot Meadery are shuttering their groundbreaking Sunnyvale business.
But there’s good news for fans of Mike and Maria Faul and their mead: The couple plans to open a small boutique meadery in retirement, though they’ll be based in the Sierra foothills and not Silicon Valley. And they are likely to hold a couple of final sales before they make the big move.
COVID-19 restrictions, which have limited them to takeout sales only for a year, put the kibosh on their 25th anniversary plans for 2020 and accelerated their retirement move.
“We had some pretty big plans to celebrate,” Mike Faul said in an interview. “We had lined up 25 collaborations that we were going to do with other top producers. We were going to host a 25th anniversary party, bringing in 100 other producers from around the world, with perhaps as many as 1,000 tickets available for four sessions over the course of a weekend.”
And then the coronavirus lockdown started. “As it continued, we had no choice but to let most of our employees go. A very hard decision.”
Because the meadery doesn’t have a commercial kitchen, they were not allowed to offer outdoor service. So they focused on takeout orders, with scheduled pickups.
“That does OK but hardly covers the cost of the mortgage, electricity, payroll, other debt service, etc.,” he said, noting that they had run through their PPP and EIPL loans. “It’s unfortunate, but we cannot go beyond $250,000 of debt to keep going.”
Like many other small businesses that rely on indoor spaces, they figured they wouldn’t really be able to open again until late summer or fall of this year.
It’s been a long, successful run for Rabbit’s Foot, and they’ve been honored for their role in the mead renaissance. According to the Meadist.com website’s Mead Movement, the Fauls are among those who have been “instrumental in the contemporary advancement of mead.”
What began as a hobby for Mike in 1987 — after Maria returned home from a trip to Ireland with a bottle of mead — turned into a business in 1995. The operation kept outgrowing its space, so they moved three times, eventually becoming the largest mead producer in the United States, with Mike earning the moniker “dean of the mead business.” They also launched production on a second continent, creating the Celtic Meadery brand with a partner in Ireland.
Today, Faul estimates there are about 600 craft producers worldwide.
As for the future, he told fans online: “We are merely morphing into something different. Something wonderful.”
The couple is in the process of building a new facility at their retirement ranch near Sutter Creek, in Amador County just north of Jackson. They will sell their imported
Irish mead and open the boutique business that aligns more closely with their retirement plans anyway.
Faul envisions a “destination” spot for their longtime fans and other travelers in the post-pandemic era — with an all-mead itinerary. “We will discuss mead, mead making, sample many meads from around the world and collaborate to make more mead,” he said.
Until then, he wrote in a closing note on the website, “We want to thank you all for the years of laughter and camaraderie that have trickled through our doors. Slainte!”
To learn about final sales and follow the progress of the boutique meadery, visit www.rabbitsfootmeadery.com or Facebook. com/rabbitsfootmeadery.
Online dietary discussion
Bay Area Older Adults is hosting an online talk for adults age 50 and older on Feb. 25, when Dr. Nusrat Khaleeli will talk about “Dietary Fats: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” from 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Khaleeli will explain how certain fats cause negative health effects while others are important for a healthy diet.
Visit https://www.bayareaolderadults.org/bao-lectures to register.
Open Space events
Fantastic Ferns and Awesome Opossums are among the topics of online programs presented this month by the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority.
Participants in the former webinar, set for noon-1 p.m. on Feb. 19, can learn about the lifecycle and diversity of one of the most prevalent plant families in the valley’s open spaces, including sword ferns, deer ferns and maidenhair ferns.
The possum webinar, a family-friendly program about the North American marsupial, is set for Feb. 20, 11 a.m.-noon.
To register for a webinar, visit Eventbrite.com.
Software scholarships
To help aspiring software developers learn their trade, Facebook this year doubled its regular donation to App Academy’s coding bootcamp, which serves Bay Area youth.
Facebook’s $500,000 donation will go toward App Academy’s Access Scholarship program for students in marginalized communities.
The program was created to continue promoting diversity and inclusivity in the tech community, particularly in underrepresented communities and in areas where financial assistance is most needed to help students fund an education that will foster successful, longterm careers.
For more information about the Access Scholarship program, visit https://www.appacademy.io/access-scholarship.