Travasare Winecafe

So we're going into a business venture with some very close friends of ours, Rob & Lynn Richards. Rob and I met over 5 years ago when I first moved to AZ and his former company, Accipiter Communications was my first big client when I had my graphic design business. Accipiter is still around, but they're flailing with no direction as Rob was their driving force. Rob has a very unconventional business mind and it seems his board of directors (mainly one person) didn't like his methods so they ousted him from a decision making position. He's been ready for his next adventure in business for some time now.

It became known, literally the night that I met Rob, that we had very similar interests and would ultimately become good friends. He got married a couple years back to a wonderful lady who left her life in Minnesota to come enjoy the valley of the sun with Rob. We spend a lot of time together enjoying great food, good company, and of course, the juice of the gods.

With my 10 years in the restaurant industry, culinary half-education, joy of food service in general and acute knowledge of wine, partnered with Rob's love and knowledge of wine and unmatched business savvy (and throw in the bubbly personalities of Lynn and Michelle), I think we've got a pretty successful formula. I've always wanted my own restaurant/bar so this is a chance of a lifetime for me personally.

Our concept is simple. Take a comforting European-ish cafe atmosphere, a simple assortment of Italian influenced food, a collection of mid-priced wines chosen more for their unique qualities than their name recognition and add some friendly social type people and you should end up with a relaxing type of place that we'd all love to hang out. Our menu will be a constant work in progress as will our selection of wines. We hope to get the attention of the average joe wine drinker moreso than the elitest cork-dorks.

Our current status is we have a business plan which is progressing along nicely which Rob is mostly responsible for. We've worked out a good variety of cost and revenue projection matrix. We have a name, logo, business cards and a first stab at a menu. Rob and Lynn will be meeting with the leasing agent for the space we're interested in this week and we hope to have that pretty well nailed down in short order. From there it's all about funding. We're hoping to go to the SBA or a private lender for a small business loan for set up costs. Barring any major setbacks, we'd like to have the doors open by June.

I'll be writing about our progress as things go along. We're very excited to have it all pan out and look forward to anyone who may be reading my blog to come visit and drink some wine with us at Travasare!