A little bit about us.

After I graduated from college, I started bartending and fell in love with the service industry.  Fifteen years went by in the blink of an eye.  I moved from Boston to Austin in 2013 and got a gig serving drinks at Ego's Karaoke Bar.  In 2014 I was headed home and noticed a "for rent" sign on an old liquor store near my home.  My partner David and I had talked about opening up a shop that was bartender focused with bar tools, bitters, syrups, books - basically all of the accoutrements needed for crafting lovely cocktails.  I went home and told David about the opportunity of opening not only our bartender shop, but also being able to open a liquor store to highlight all of the brands we knew and loved.  David was hesitant, but I called the number on the sign anyway.  We signed the lease five days later.  David and I had both worked as bartenders for the better part of twenty years and were flush with product knowledge, but running a small business, not so much.  The first two years were full of trials and errors and learning, but today (seven years later) we have three locations, thirty employees, and a thriving wholesale business.

I wouldn't say our path has been smooth, but we were so lucky to have the Austin service industry behind us.  They say that word of mouth advertising is invaluable and I couldn't agree more.  David and I know a lot about the products we sell, however we didn't know how little we knew about running a business.  We spent all of the money we had opening our first store - we were not able to hire any employees for the first two years of being in business.  David and I worked twelve hours a day six days a week.  We struggled to pay our bills, we struggled to keep our shop stocked, we struggled to keep our relationship alive.  There were many times we wanted to throw in the towel, but looking back on it now, I can say we overcame all of those struggles and all of the tears were totally worth it.

-Kiki