ASHEVILLE – On Nov. 1, Wicked Weed Brewing’s staff for its sour and barrel-aged beer-focused Funkatorium brewpub and adjoining Cultura restaurant at 147 Coxe Ave., were called by management to the South Slope property for a mandatory meeting that ended with most of the service industry workers unemployed.
Conor Tormey, who worked for Wicked Weed for three years and was the prep cook for Funkatorium, said the announcement surprised many as the staff was preparing to reopen after it closed due to the Sept. 27 Tropical Storm Helene and the citywide water outage.
He said on Oct. 18 he was called back to work to prepare to reopen on Nov. 18 and that recipe and menu writing were underway.
“They called us back to work two weeks ago telling us that we could work 30 hours a week, supplement the additional 10 hours a week that we were missing through unemployment, and that we were going to try to reopen,” Tormey said.
According to former staff in attendance, Wicked Weed’s co-founder Ryan Guthy told them their positions were eliminated effective immediately. Human resources personnel fielded questions, and eligible workers were offered severance packages and told their health benefits would be covered for the following six months.
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Wicked Weed was founded by local entrepreneurs in 2012 and was acquired by Anheuser-Busch, owned by A-B InBev, in 2017. In 2014, Funkatorium was introduced followed by Cultura in 2019.
Rachel Dudasik, Wicked Weed’s community engagement and communications manager, confirmed that Cultura and Funkatorium would “remain temporarily closed” though a date for its reopening was not provided.
On Oct. 25, Wicked Weed Brew Pub at 91 Biltmore Ave. reopened. On Oct. 31, Wicked Weed’s taproom at 145 Jacob Holm Way in Candler reopened.
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Tormey estimated that 30-40 employees were terminated. He said three of the nearly 16 kitchen staff were selected to transfer to the Biltmore Avenue brewpub but that all the front-of-the-house workers were let go.
He said the staff could reapply for their jobs when the restaurants reopened.
Tormey said he was concerned about how the restaurants would fare during the slower winter season because before Tropical Storm Helene customer traffic had drastically declined following the COVID-19 tourism surge of 2021.
In 2019, Eric Morris was hired as Cultura’s chef de cuisine and later promoted to executive chef.
He said he left Wicked Week on his own accord on Oct. 17.
“As a chef, their focus is on putting beer on shelves ― it’s a brewery and that makes sense, so a lot of the resources and focus of the whole operation was more geared toward that and less about the restaurant space, where my passion is,” Morris said.
He said corporate oversight and micromanagement had increased over the years.
“Trying to align my values with that of a giant conglomerate, I was having a hard time dealing with that,” Morris said.
He is now working with locally owned and operated Foothills Meats to develop and introduce a new two-story restaurant focused on sustainable butchery and whole animal fabrication in Black Mountain.
Morris said there were at least 40 employees at Cultura and Funkatorium before his departure.
Tormey said he’s looking for new employment but that options are few as many businesses remain closed or are operating with limited staff due to storm damage and/or the city’s water outage, which is expected to continue well into December.
“It’s a weird situation knowing that not only Wicked Weed’s staff was let go but how many other people in the industry are out of work right now,” Tormey said. “Even the businesses that say they are rehiring are hiring a few amount of people. It’s going to be a difficult winter for a lot of people.”
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Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. She is a graduate of Michigan State University and covered the arts, entertainment and hospitality in Louisiana for several years. Email her at tkennell@citizentimes.com or follow her on Instagram @PrincessOfPage.
