Fuse closes for good in The Alley in downtown Aiken

Aiken Standard reporter

A downtown Aiken restaurant that served food inspired by a variety of cuisines and cultures is no longer in business.

Chef Chris Najmola announced last week on Facebook that Fuse had closed for good.

“She (the restaurant) was just a very thirsty beast that ran through resources at a rate that was faster than we could keep up with,” wrote Najmola on Messenger over the weekend in response to an Aiken Standard inquiry about Fuse’s demise. “Almost everything we served was made from scratch … and I would say fairly well received. Unfortunately, as a business, perhaps it would have been more profitable to take the easy way out and serve lots of factory prepared products. We kept our standards till the end, and died on that hill because of it.”

Karen Draper and her brother, Eric, founded Fuse in 2015 in Augusta. The eatery closed in October 2019 when the lease at its site on Broad Street ended.

Not long afterward, Najmola and Ian Dingess, who were Fuse employees, “basically acquired the rights” to the restaurant’s name and its recipes, Dingess told the Aiken Standard four years ago.

He and Najmola looked at other locations in Augusta along with places in Evans, Georgia, and North Augusta before deciding to relaunch Fuse in Aiken.

The restaurant opened at 222 The Alley S.W. late in 2020.

Describing Fuse last year in his Taste of the Town column in the Aiken Standard, Michael Stern wrote that the eatery’s goal, both in Augusta and Aiken was “to ingeniously fuse flavors from around the world with groceries from here and beyond.”

Fuse’s menu changed frequently, and the restaurant’s offerings included different versions of ramen, umami pork shoulder, chocolate chili chicken, Thai Strip (steak), chicken paprikash, seasonal veggie curry, duck fat fries, falafel bites, potstickers and a mushroom medley appetizer.

Aiken Standard reporter

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