Kickstarter

First of all, as always, we want to thank you guys for believing in this project.  It's important to us that you know: your support has not gone unappreciated, and we haven't been resting on our laurels.  Even though our laurels are so comfortable. And you know how tired we get.

As we reported, our plans for moving into a commercial kitchen space have been changing as we go through this  process and learn the steps we need to take to get where we want to be.  Our original plan, to move into a communal kitchen incubator program in Harlem, turned out to be a little overly ambitious.  We were rejected from the program and given some advice on how to grow and position ourselves to reapply: get some hard market data and create a few, small scale relationships with clients who continually order our product. Thankfully, our friends at Bedford Hill Coffee Bar tried our kraut.  We've been working with them ever since they first served a bratwurst featuring our Backwoods Smokraut, hammering out the details on installing a second prep kitchen in the restaurant for us to move into. This is the spot where we'll be making our first full batch of commercially certified kraut, and we're looking forward to using the opportunity afforded us by this project to figure out our exact costs of doing business, and thus be able to accurately create financial projections and move toward a marketing plan based on those real numbers. Not for nothing, we also couldn't be happier that every day we're moving closer to fufilling the rewards for you all.

Right now, though, our future space is undergoing the needed renovations to bring it up to code.  That means the walls need to be tiled, a proper workspace needs to be installed, and hookup must be provided for a commercial sink.  That said, we're hoping to move in by mid-July.  At the same time, we're hitting a bump in the road that we honestly should have been expecting: our farmer is out of last harvest's cabbage and the new batch won't be ready until around that same time.  It's kind of a patch-22. Ahem.

Rest assured, while this process is certainly taking longer than any of us expected, we're also working on the other aspects of our rewards while we wade slowly into the waters of business. We'll be sending a follow up e-mail shortly asking our backers that signed up for our pickling class to pick a date, and another for those who picked it to choose which of our Brine & Dine dinner dates you'd prefer to pick up from us. And just this afternoon, we finished making the screens necessary to hand print all of our postcards and t-shirts!

Bill, Christopher, and David
Brine & Dine

We did it! Thanks in ALL PART to you!  Sorry for the belated gratitude but we have just been beside ourselves with joy, not to mention an enormous amount of cooking for our events this past weekend.  Whew!

We will be getting our surveys out this week to find out what sort of tasks lay before us in the coming busy months.  We have work to do in the way of construction, chopping, cooking, crocking, and something else with a "c"...  Catering.  That's it.  Also we'll be screening a bunch of shirts and patches.

We want to know what you want to taste and what you want to wear!  And we also want to know what you like and what you don't like.  We want to hear from as many of you as possible.

Please feel free to follow us on Facebook and Tumblr for all sorts of non-Kickstarter news.

Exciting things are already happening!
Brine and Dine

Good news, everyone!

We here at Brine & Dine HQ have made a startling discovery that we believe will shake this project to its very core:  Our flat rate shipping boxes can and will accommodate up to 3 jars of sauerkraut in addition to any other rewards being sent!  This means that if you have pledged $15 for shipping, you may pledge for an additional 1-2 more jars of kraut with no additional shipping cost incurred. 

PLUS, because we're so close to the deadline, so grateful for the support we've received over the course of this project, and doing such a big collective face-palm at not realizing this sooner, we're going to knock $5 off the total cost for anyone who pledges to receive 3 jars.  We'll also extend this $5 off 3 jars offer to those who've pledged for pick-up.

It looks something like this:

• If you pledged $40 for a jar and t-shirt, you may pledge an additional $15 for one or $25 for 2 more jars at no additional shipping cost ($55-65 total). 
• If you pledged $30 for a jar, you may pledge an additional $15 for one or $25 for 2 more jars at no additional shipping cost ($45-55 total).

So.  We're 55 hours away from completing this project and $845 short of our goal of getting everyone who has pledged above $25 with a brand-new, unique-to-backers tote bag. 

We're hoping that this update has blown the lid off a long-simmering suspicion here on Kickstarter  regarding the price of shipping live cultures and senior Brine and Dine officials' ability to effectively stack, sort, or pack items that will create an uproar s oloud that we're catapulted past our goal.  Alternatively, we could just ask you to share this information with your friends, family and networks for one last push towards the finish line and that $8,000 goal.

As always, with a deep appreciation for your support,

Brine and Dine

Thank you friends, family, kickstarter backers, live food enthusiasts, and any combination of those categories! We've reached our fundraising goal of $6,500 with a week to spare, so of course we're upping the ante. We've set a new goal of raising $8,000 by the end of our campaign, and if we reach that goal we're going to reward everyone that pledges $25 or more with a kickstarter-backer specific tote bag!

To make this happen, we're aiming to fund our project through higher contributions.  We've posted an update describing exactly what you can expect in return for pledging $500.  We're offering full vegan catering services for parties with up to 20 guests; that's a steal!  Check out the update for details on what we've made catering in the past, and know that we're willing to work with you and put together a menu specifically tailored to your needs!

We're so happy to know that this is really going to happen, and we're thankful to our backers -  without your financial support we'd be sunk.   We need you to encourage your networks to check out our project and contribute, so PLEASE continue to spread the word and help us meet our new goal so we can provide that extra reward!