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Kodiak’s Crab Fest is around the corner, and revelers will have a new venue where they can celebrate; the Double Shovel Cider Company plans to open its doors in downtown Kodiak that same weekend.
Double Shovel owners Gideon Saunders and Jack Lau say they’re excited to bring cider to Kodiak. Saunders says it will be a community hub.
“Kodiak is full of passionate people. I mean, we have incredible visitors and we have obviously incredible residents and so this will be a place for everybody to come and share that experience and find an appreciation for a drink that has been around since the founding of this nation and has grown with this nation,” Saunders said.
Saunders isn’t a stranger to Kodiak. He also owns Bright Box Farms – which sells locally grown greens. He co-owns Double Shovel’s Anchorage flagship location with Lau, and says that local interest in Kodiak was apparent very quickly.
“I started seeing double shovel shirts and hats and stickers and stuff showing up down here kind of organically on its own,” Saunders said.
The cidery falls under Alaska’s brewery laws, so patrons can expect a limit to how many drinks they can have in a night.
Saunders and Lau say there’s been a lot of community enthusiasm for their forthcoming Kodiak location – volunteers even helped with renovations of their new downtown space across from the Y. In honor of that support, they’re having a soft opening the weekend of May 21st. They’re planning a grand opening on the weekend of 28th.