Artifact Cider Venture will shut its Cambridge spot

A craft cider taproom devoted to utilizing native apples to make “genuine, eclectic, and forward-looking” drinks will likely be shutting down its location in Cambridge.

Artifact Cider Venture introduced on Instagram Thursday that The Station in Central Sq. will maintain its closing day of service on Could 31.

Co-founder Soham Bhatt instructed Boston.com that the COVID-19 pandemic led to the choice. “Regardless that issues had been on the up and up… it simply grew to become untenable, from a monetary standpoint, after two years of the pandemic,” Bhatt mentioned.

In response to their submit, “timing was not in [their] favor,” as building for the spot was accomplished at first of the pandemic in spring 2020, and opened a number of months later in October 2020.

“We did all the things we might,” the submit reads. “The group valiantly negotiated ever-changing rules, social distancing, indoor/outside, their very own well being, an unprecedented inhabitants shift out of the neighborhood, and a complete reevaluation of how we drink, join, and entertain ourselves. Our world modified, and whereas issues have constructed again into a brand new regular, our challenge on [Massachusetts] Ave. is heartbreaking collateral harm.”

Artifact nonetheless has a taproom in Florence and can proceed to distribute and make cider, in order that their drinks could be bought in native retailers and bars.

The enterprise makes use of “considerate sourcing and the inventive utility of Northeast apples,” to make distinctive ciders, based on their web site. A few of their drinks embody the “Lengthy Method Again,” which is crisp and fragrant, made 100% from McIntosh apples, and the “Feels Like Dwelling,” which is each fruity and unfiltered, aged on rum-soaked oak. The Station is a 3,000-square-foot taproom with a 32 foot bar, that includes meals from Mimi’s Chuka Diner. Final fall, we spoke with Artifact’s director of hospitality, Megan MacLean, who shared what makes the cider particular.

“[T]hey actually have pursued this imaginative and prescient of honoring the apples and the terroir the place the apples come from,” MacLean mentioned.

Bhatt mentioned he hopes that clients will fondly bear in mind the occasions that they had at The Station.

“It’s a troublesome choice to make,” Bhatt mentioned. “It’s emotionally very troublesome. We tried to do the very best by our employees and allow them to know what was occurring as early as attainable, making an attempt to make the previous few days be optimistic, hoping folks have a very good reminiscence of the cider they had been capable of have.”