By Kaitlin Fleming
Staff Correspondent
In 2018, the City of Gadsden welcomed several new businesses. One of the largest names that came to the city were LongHorn Steakhouse. Rock -N-Roll Sushi, Calcean Minerals and Materials LLC, and several other businesses opened their doors this past year as well.
LongHorn Steakhouse opened on October 2 off of U.S. Highway 411 in Gadsden. The opening drew a large crowd of hungry individuals waiting for a fresh grilled steak. To help welcome the business, members of The Etowah Chamber, Gadsden city officials, Gadsden Mayor Sherman Guyton and plenty of local citizens helped cut the ceremonial lasso to signify the opening of the large doors. Mayor Guyton even cut the ceremonial steak outside the new restaurant.
The restaurant was built in about six months and sits just outside the Gadsden Mall.
Rock-N-Roll Sushi, another restaurant, also opened its doors in 2018. At the end of April, the eccentric sushi restaurant started serving customers at 504 Broad Street in Gadsden.
Co-owners Kris Roberts and Charity Perez, both Gadsden locals, began work to open the store over a year and a half ago.
“We love Broad Street and we love downtown,” said Roberts.
The building, the old lime green downtown café, is registered as a historical site, meaning that Rock-N-Roll Sushi had to keep the original facade. The business also elected to keep the original flooring.
So far, the restaurant has been very busy. The opening week sales for the Gadsden location broke the franchise’s opening sales records. The restaurant offers more than just sushi, such as hibachi meats and vegetables.
More than just restaurants opened in the Gadsden area in 2018. Calcean Minerals and Materials LLC began operations at its new Gadsden facility over the summer.
Calcean is a processing company for a biogenically renewable high performance mineral known as oolitic aragonite sand.
Oolitic aragonite sand is used as raw materials for products in different industries such as agriculture and plastic manufacturing. Calcean’s core value is creating products in the spirit of biogenic renewability and matching prices competitively.
Calcean invested $2.6 million dollars in its Gadsden facility, which is used for state of the art research and lab developments as well as processing and distributing. The new industry brought 70 new skilled jobs paying yearly salaries of $44,000 to the area.
“We look forward to bringing more industry, more jobs and more growth to Gadsden,” said Guyton.