A Kickstarter campaign backed by Savvy Orders to reopen the abruptly shuttered Paseo has fizzled out. The campaign was trying to raise $250,000 "to buy and re-open Paseo, hire the original employees, and provide livable wages and benefits."

GeekWire reports that after a surge of support topping $40K, critical posts about the campaign "put an abrupt halt to incoming donations." In fact, backers have withdrawn more than $5,000 in the last few days, with new pledges remaining stagnant.

In an update posted yesterday on its Kickstarter page, Savvy Orders says that when "some of the previous employees explained that they were not interested in working with us, we offered to turn the Kickstarter over to them."

...as one of the previous employees put it, "[T]he recipes [are] his old boss' best chance at starting over", the last thing we want to do is stand in the way of someone making a living by acquiring his recipes through bankruptcy proceedings. We gave it our all and tried to do what we thought would be best for Paseo lovers. But at this point, it seems highly unlikely that Paseo will be reopened and restored to its original glory by us.

Greg Gans, owner of Savvy Orders, tells GeekWire he was "surprised" by the response of former Paseo employees after reaching out: "They wouldn't even have a conversation with us or hear us out." His offer to turn the campaign over to staff last received no response from many, "except for a couple of them who have said ‘please don't contact us.'"