Husband and Wife Team Transforms Passion into a Thriving Wine Bar: Chuck and Amanda Azar

0:00 There's no greater gift than you telling your friends and family how wonderful we were. 'Cause no matter how much we tell people that you know that we don't know, they're not gonna believe us, but they'll believe you. Sit back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul Kaye. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kaye. And we are at an away game. Well, not that far away for me, Hermosa Beach, my favorite stomping ground. About to have a conversation with Chuck and Amanda Azar of the, I'm gonna get it wrong. Mara— Malandrina. See, I don't know what's wrong with me. Nothing. I do this all the time. I just— we just get into it. Hey, welcome to the show. Cheers.

0:41 Thank you. You know, we were here July 4th, and my wife and I were just walking down, and we saw that you were open, and we thought, we have to find out what this is. Now, I had already had 2 Manhattans at this point. But I still wanted to find out. Couldn't tell. And we were so taken by your story that I wanted to get out here as soon as I could to tell the story. Because you've only been open since when? 4th of July. It was like 5:46 PM. We came through the door. Barely. And we said, whatever happens, happens. Like, it can't get worse than what we've just been through the last 30 days. Well, that's— let's start with that. This is a Taller. You're a tasting bar, but it looks like a little retail.

1:21 Yeah. You're gonna do some retail here? Uh, well, yeah, but that's more of our library. That's just for our backstock. Everything— I know, honey, I'm sorry, but, uh, everything that is on our list is also for sale for retail. So we have plenty of people coming in and buying whatever they want, taking it home. But this is more of a showcase of what we're doing. We have an inside joke because when we were building this place, Chuck kept telling everyone that came in, we're gonna have a library. I was like, you should really clarify that it's not a library library. This is gonna be mine. That's a library as far as I'm concerned. Yes, right. A library of wine, a library of books, or— Well, look, I spent 35 years doing this and I know what a tall order this is.

2:03 And it can only take tons of passion, tons of perseverance and pursuit to do this. You're with a winery right now as a— I do. I run the operations for Tensley Winery. Which I had not heard of before I got here, which is very crazy. But somebody else I told this story to recently said they I knew Tenzily, and you were with corporate booze there for a while. Since 2000. I hate to say it, but, you know, 26 years in the making, and the last 8 have just been extremely difficult. And I'm watching the landscape of the wholesaler side just continue to get worse and worse and worse. And I was driving home in San Francisco while Amanda's here in LA, and I just said, honey, I think it's just time for us to figure something out. Like, How does a wine bar sound to you? And she's like, I love the idea. And I'm not joking, within a month we already had a business plan, a goal that we set, everything that we wanted to do to be successful. And not to mention, I know people are going to think I'm fucking crazy, but I have 2 kids and Amanda has 3. So now we're a family of 7. So 5 kids from— I'm sorry, the podcast is over now. We can't comprehend that kind of— Well, there's a reason why we're in the alcohol industry.

3:27 Well, that's— it's— but no, there's a, there's a ton that you just said there that I want to peel back a little bit because corporate America, corporate America in itself, and then corporate liquor and wine is a whole different animal. And I can't tell you how many times, not that I've consulted with people, but I've heard the story where they bring to the counter to do something in the wine business because they came from clothing or they came from rugs or they came from somewhere else and they realize it doesn't work. Right. It's such a unique industry. But you have insight. You have insight to this. I have. I have more insight. I have more brand knowledge than— I don't want to brag, but I'm just saying the 26 years that I've been a part of the wholesaler side, I've launched probably a good 10,000 brands into the market. And with that being said, I've seen 99 of them 99% of them fail. So just having that kind of background, and I'm talking the most successful people on the planet, even like, I don't mean to name names, but like professional quarterbacks have come to us to launch brands and guys that I thought were my idols. And I'm like, this is never going to fly.

4:44 Don't care how much money you're going to throw at this, it's not going to go anywhere. What do you think it is that's so enamoring? Because you and I, we know the inside baseball of this, right? And I've seen the same thing you have. What is it so romantically enamoring for someone like a professional quarterback or anybody else that says, oh, I want to be in the wine business, or I want to start? Is it the billion dollars that what's-his-name got for his tequila brand, or is it The romantic side of the lifestyle? What do you think they're looking for? Can I be completely frank? I want you to be frank. I honestly think they need to lose money every single year. They are doing this to drive reverse profits. Really? I do think so. I think that their tax bracket is so far on the other side that they need something to balance it out. Like I said, I don't think that there's enough money on the planet to launch— let's just talk, you know, Chuck Azar, professional quarterback for X amount of team, won 3 Super Bowls, is launching an energy drink. And you're like, this is so-and-so. He's a class act. He's an idol.

5:52 And within 3 months, it completely bankrupts. But I've seen that over and over and over and over again. You probably already know this, but at some point, the celebrity endorsement was the thing, right? Yeah. Same brand, just somebody said, oh, I drink this stuff. And then, then they thought they're getting into it, they're doing it, and they're part of the process. It's still just as big a failure. And I don't understand. It can't be just to lose money. It has to be some— It, first of all, the chips are 100% stacked against them, no matter what they try to do. They don't have the right consultants, the right PR firms, no matter what they're trying to do. They're on the other end of it. If you're not entrenched in this business every single day and you don't have hardcore connections with people, you're not going to go anywhere. I've been doing this for 26 years. I've been in Northern California.

6:47 I'm in Southern California and I'm dealing with local people in LA and I know their bosses' bosses and they're like, how do you know these people? And I said, I mean, from where I came from, the state's not that small. You know, like everybody knows someone. And once you're into this industry, you're connected with someone. So if a professional quarterback or a professional baseball player tries to come in and they're not dialed into every aspect of that business, they're not going anywhere. I think it's like you said before, it's, you know, not everybody understands the intricacies of the industry and people can't come from another industry and make it work. It doesn't work. Yeah, it doesn't work. A lot of times it'll fail. So, you know, we were lucky that we come from both the supplier side and the distribution side, and we had the vision. And like you said, the passion, you know, wine was a passion for us. And so this was an immediate head nod between the husband and wife, like, because that doesn't happen very often at my house. So, you know, you're like, we have to do this. And you know it from the supplier side, and you know it from the distributor side, and you've seen all these things fail. And you've seen them succeed and you think, you know, we've got at least a fighting chance to make this work. I think we have probably the best chance to be successful between me and Amanda. Our business is not going to be geared for one channel. It's not just a wine bar. It's not just the restaurant.

8:13 It's not just the private label we're doing for Malandrino. It's everything that we're doing. It's all-inclusive. Like, there's nothing that— there's no stone we haven't turned and we're turning like Within 10 days, people are amazed where we are. It is amazing. It's mind-blowing. Friends and family of mine, people in the industry are like, how the fuck did you do that? And there's a guy across the street and they've been closed for 6 months and they probably got another year in construction. And we were able to push this project. I think I told you earlier, it was a 2.5-month project. I pushed it in less than 26 days. I'm a little jealous. It took me months to transfer his license. He has a Type 21. Yeah. To my wife and I. It took months for this to happen. Right, right. And so, you know the ins and outs. But what's the dream? What's the— when you head nodded and said, yeah, honey, I think I want to do this. And you probably had some idea what the headwinds were going to be, but maybe not all of them. But what was the dream for this? We kind of had this vision. And again, you know, we met through a work event and Chuck was living in San Francisco and still is part-time. And I'm down here in LA. So we spent a lot of time time going back and forth and, you know, on the Central Coast and in wine country. And we obviously love to check out wine bars because it is a passion for us, not just a job. Every wine bar that we went in, we spent the entire time going like, oh, we were just— either the wine list was awful, the food was awful, or just the

9:46 environment. Yeah, the ambiance, the service. There's something that just fell short regardless of where we went. And again, We've gone to a lot of places between San Francisco and LA, but we would always leave not disappointed, but just like, man, if they just had X, it would have made our experience more eventful. Like, we would definitely come back. And there's not a lot of places we've gone back to. So from both of our cultures, we come from backgrounds of hospitality and family and friends and getting together around food and wine. And that was really important for us to bring here. We just wanted a place where people would come sit down with a glass of wine, you know, put their feet up on the couch with the girlfriend and be comfortable and cozy. And from our complimentary pour when you walk in to our service staff and the food and the quality of the wines on our list and the value of them, we wanted everybody to be able to come in, be comfortable, happy, and walk out of here feeling like that was a great experience.

10:52 That's— you nailed it. I mean, you nailed the idea, right? Thank you. Because of the turmoil the industry's in with packaging and Tetra Paks and cans. And I saw the other day somebody started a pouch. Who the hell wants to drink wine from a pouch? How does that support this experience? It's not for us. And I really believe, and you've been in the industry long enough to know that, that really experiences drive all of this. And it got away from that for a while. And I think it needs to go back to that in order to not survive, 'cause it's never going anywhere, but to reignite a generation that skipped it, that missed what we know already. And so what a noble thing to do to, to say, we want you to connect. Is there any other beverage since you've sold so many that does that? Honestly? No.

11:41 No. That's not urban. No, no. And truth be told, like, I've worked with Nobel Peace Prize winners and I know them on a first-name basis. And the gentleman is just a complete amazing human being. And just the passion that he oozes, I have always wanted to— there's 2 people in my life that I One of them is Bob Long, and he was a mentor of mine, honestly, a father figure to me. I kind of had a falling out with him, and shame on me, because like I said, the guy would've took a bullet for me. The second person is George Sandeman, and I worked with George Sandeman several times in San Francisco. And between the two of them, if I can be 5% of the men that they were, that was a passion of mine. My father is my greatest inspiration. Wow. Person in my life. He's my inspiration. He's my best friend. He does everything I— no questions asked. Like, he's never said no to me.

12:46 And that was how I was raised. So that's pretty amazing for those 3 men. I will say I hope my oldest will be half the man that I am. And I know that he will be. But it's there. I've just been built on Just, you do everything in your power to be the best human being you can be. And those 3 men have just proven that to me every single day. It must be our Middle Eastern background that drives that kind of thing. It is. People don't understand what it's like to be Palestinian to begin with. But yeah, you know, sure, I get it all the time. Like, how far is that from Pakistan? Yeah, same with everything. Look, I'm really sorry that they're not even on the same, like, Whatever. But so there's not that joke where the Sicilian and the Palestinian walk into a wine bar. Oh, sorry. Just— no, but you should come up with it. But Amanda's got a great story because, you know, we have our Moor heads here. So, yeah, right. That's right. Do you know? I was trying to convince my wife to buy a couple of these things when we were in Palermo. In Sicily. Yeah. So the backstory behind the Moor heads, and it's a little bit morbid, but they're basically these ceramic heads that are ornately decorated with fruits and plants, and you're supposed to plant something inside of them. But the backstory is that an Arab came to Sicily and fell in love with a Sicilian woman, and their love was kind of forbidden. So the family of the woman killed them, beheaded them. But— I think I remember that. It is a love

14:18 story. Yeah, it is a love story about an Arab man and a Sicilian woman falling in love. So they definitely needed to have a place here. Well, what, uh, what ethnicity did not overrun Sicily anyway? Totally. So there's something going on anyway, right? So when your goal was to create a place for people to gather, and this comes from the background at home, it comes from your experience in the industry. I mean, wine was part of my growing up, and I, I was wanted to dovetail off of what you said. There's not a day, even today, even though I don't sell anymore, not directly, that I don't thank my father for getting me into this industry. As hard as it was and how much headwinds and how much work it was, that the payoff of being part of this, this lifestyle is unbelievable. But was it part of your lifestyle growing up? It absolutely was. You know, growing up with a Sicilian mom, I think it was a little more challenging because my dad was in the Air Force, so we moved around a lot growing up. But when, you know, wine in the Sicilian culture, it's meant to be drank with food. It's not a social thing. You know, it's part of your everyday life. So growing up, from the time I was 10 or 11, you know, if we were having wine with dinner, we were allowed to have a glass of wine too with dinner because it was part of

15:48 the culture. It wasn't, you know, frowned upon. It wasn't thought of as like this negative thing in social society. It was just a part of everyday life. That's right. Yeah. Is that different between Americans and most of Europe, if not all of Europe? That cultural divide between how family sits and enjoys? I'm jealous of the European culture that way in that they protect their wines, they protect their butter, they protect their cheese. But at the same time, America's the new frontier to come and try to do new things. You don't have to grow Nerello Mascalese, you know, in Napa Valley. But to me, that's a fascinating part of life in Europe is that it is culturally part of what you do every day. It creates a— I don't know, it creates a different lifestyle. It creates a different pace, doesn't it? Is that in your house the same? It is.

16:45 And I was going to say, I mean, my father's background is— God, you know, there's a gentleman in my family who's writing a book and my father is one of the main characters in it. Is it fiction? Is it nonfiction or fiction? Is this a true story? It's a real deal true story. Really? Wow. My dad, when he was 15, left Palestine and went to go work in an oil refinery in like Kuwait. And then he was working in Kuwait again at the age of 15, up until like the age of 18, where he had to— he had an opportunity to— and forgive me, I don't remember which was first, but he— I think he went to Sweden first and lived in Sweden for about 8 years. And then he also had another opportunity also in the same industry. He was a welder by trade. So oil refineries, oil Containers and stuff like that was kind of what he was doing. From Sweden, he went to France and lived in France for about 8 or 10 years as well. And then he met my mom and they got married.

17:51 Here I am in Detroit. But to your point, yes, my father used to believe in you go home at 3 o'clock, you see the wife and kids and make sure that everybody's happy and healthy. You take a nice 2-hour nap, then you go back out into the trade or do what you need to do and come back for dinner. My father was truly a workaholic and he spent 99% of his day like providing. But the 30 minutes or an hour that we had before bedtime, it was quality time for all of us. I mean, he made sure me and my 2 siblings, my 2 younger brothers and my youngest sister, checked on us in every single which way. And it was a hug and a kiss before, you know, pat on the butt and off to bed. Wow. And my father is one of those gentlemen that he never raised a hand on us, not even once. It was just the look in his eyes that would terrify the hell out of you. And that's one thing that I learned very delicately with my children.

18:57 Like, I've never raised my hand on my children. I've had to put them in a corner. But just the shackles. But it's— no, yeah, maybe. But a lot of who I am comes from my father, so I'm very grateful for it. Is that why you fell in love with him? Yeah, he reminded me a lot of my Sicilian grandpa, actually. Really? Yeah. With the cigars, too. I mean, it seems like that's a baseline for hospitality. You know, you probably see it every day. You already examined a bunch of— it's funny because I had a coffee club for a while when I— besides the wine club, and I did the same thing. I went to all these cafes up and down the coast and I would investigate and all this stuff. And you'd find something that you think you could improve on, coffee, whether the hospitality. But hospitality, there are a lot of people that shouldn't be in it. And I think a lot of it has to do with this story. It's true. I swear you can ask any one of our staff members. They were treated like family even before we took the keys to this place. We have a young lady who served us the night before we finally made the decision that we were going to buy this place. And of course, we walked in and I was like, there's no effing way I'm going to drink anything on this guy's wine list. I'm not going to poison myself. I don't want to torture Amanda, honey, it's all you. If you want to go through the pain and suffering, buy it for me. So I took the menu and I told the young lady, I'll

20:27 say, I'll have this glass of wine right here. And I pointed at an IPA and she looked at me and she goes, okay. And then she dropped the beer as she dropped the sparkling wine for Amanda. And Amanda just gave me an elbow and she's like, what? You're supposed to be punished with me. And I said, I refuse to, like, I'm already picking up the check. So like, I don't want to, to suffer anymore. You know? I like the twist. Torture him with drinking. That's really funny. The young lady that evening, as she was just sweet as can be, we wrote her a note on the back of the receipt and we just said, Chuck and Amanda, we'll come back and see you in— we'll come back and revisit.

21:08 Wow. See us again or something along those lines. And the day that we took ownership of the place, she walked in and it was her last day working with the last ownership. And she said that she had gotten a call the night before saying that the business is no longer under the old leadership and she needs to come in and collect her check and her belongings and stuff like that. And she was devastated. She was like, oh my God, I gotta find work again. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm a student. She's studying to be an attorney here. And she's just a lovely, lovely young lady. And we fell in love with her that night. We said, even if she has no wine knowledge whatsoever, We will find a way to train her into the hospitality that we love. And she walked in and she was completely devastated. And she tells this to every single person that walks in here. She goes, the second I saw you two standing there, she said, I had tears of joy. Wow.

22:03 She said, I just knew that I had family, a place that I was going to be secure with. And we oozed that to every single person of our staff. And every single person walking in the door. We do absolutely treat everybody like family. And again, that does go back to both of our cultures and that sense of, you know, just wanting to bring everybody together and be a happy family. So, yeah. Based on the size of the pour you gave me the other night, I could see that. We do. You know, for us, it's about— We're very generous in everything that we do. We don't hold any punches. We have a dog walking group coming in tomorrow. And I walked outside, and this podcast will be probably after the event. Yes. I walked over to the young lady and I said, look, it's not just about hosting you, it's about hosting your animals as well. I said, I will have 3 watering containers, but beyond that, I want to do something for the dogs as well. And she said, okay, like, what are you thinking? And I said, well, I know I can't serve chicken, so let's just, let's just remove that from the equation. But I said, we do our grape leaves in-house, and it's a rice and ground beef mixture with a whole bunch of seasonings and a whole bunch of delicious stuff. But I said, what I'll do is I'll cook rice and the ground beef, and I'll mix it up, and I'll give the dogs like a 1-cup portion. How nice. And I said, I will go out of my way to overthink everything just for you to come back and celebrate with us. Every kid that comes in gets watermelon. The babies, we steal. I think I'm going to come. We steal and

23:36 hold the babies. We steal babies left and right. And I mean, mom and dad will be out here having a great time and they're having a glass of wine and the baby might be fussy and come to Uncle Chuck and Auntie Amanda, you know, and we'll take the babies off their hands and we'll still work while the mom and the parents are having fun and the baby is happy as a clam. You guys call that dolma or sarma or? So in Palestinian, we call it waraq dawal. It means literally the leaves of a grape. Oh. Dolmas is the Greek version. The Greek version. In Armenian, it's called sarma or dolma. But anyway, well, that's it. I think that I'm going to come for the dog thing and just— Be here tomorrow. I'll crawl in and I'll get some— Oh, I'm not joking. Like, I'll get a cup of something.

24:21 Yeah. And long of the story, Sarah was outside and I've never met her before. And I just said, look, we are We are going to do everything we can to go above and beyond anything you've ever experienced because we want you to come back. We want you to tell every single person that you know how special our hospitality was. There's no greater gift than you telling your friends and family how wonderful we were, because no matter how much we tell people that you know that we don't know, they're not going to believe us, but they'll believe you. It's true. You're right on. And the hospitality is going to drive this, and it obviously is part of your DNA. Yeah. And that's critical because like I said before, you run into so many places where you just don't believe the person who's serving it. You just don't believe that they're sincere in their earnest value to create an experience for you to enjoy. And that's— we have to do that.

25:15 That's what this— By the way, we have to do this. I mean, it is part of us no matter what. Again, and that's what wine is all about. It's about making those memories and the connections. And, you know, the story about the employee, which is interesting because I know the place that was here before, I won't mention any names. I always thought their menu was so, it was so voluminous that they couldn't make any one thing right. Right. How could you possibly? I heard they had a good fish taco. Their food menu. I'm not joking. For a French bistro, I'm sure they knock it out. Exactly. But someone else told me that they also do sushi and I was like, Yes, I just— Wow, really? That's interesting. That's so old school. You get a menu like that. Their wine list was interesting. And they weren't a wine bar, so, but they did have a pretty big wine list. And Chuck makes fun of me because I do like to torture him with drinking shitty wines. But again, that's part of, you know, my viewpoint on learning. And it doesn't matter how many years you've been in the industry. I'm sure you still learn things every day, right? And for me, it's about try everything.

26:18 It doesn't matter if you know it's going to be shitty. It doesn't matter if you think it's going to be fantastic. Just try everything. Because at the end of the day, trying them is learning. You know, you're never going to know what that 100-point wine should taste like if you haven't drank the really shitty stuff. My dad used to say, you're tasting it. I don't care what you smell, you're going to taste it. You'll never know the flaws if you don't taste it. Exactly. And you mentioned something when we sat down that You recently tasted 60 wines in a day. And that, my Tuesdays were 9 to 2 every Tuesday for 35 years. I tasted probably 60 to 75 wines, and that was my job. I considered it the job. Yeah. Because, and it wasn't a fun job necessarily, 'cause at 2 o'clock you're pretty tired, right? I mean, you taste 60 wines in a day, you're pretty tired. Yeah. Or you go to the Southern tasting and you walk through all those tables and taste as much as you can.

27:06 It's tiring work despite the fact that people say, oh, what a glamorous job. In order to provide the service and the level of quality you want to provide, it takes a lot of work. Were there other headwinds to this that you didn't expect? You did an amazing job on the speed side, but were there things that you went, oh, the health department, oh my God, all those things? Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Murphy's Law loves us. I'm just going to be honest. Is that Sicilian Murphy or is he Palestinian? He was It's not from our family. He had definitely some horns on his head. I mean, he was evil as fuck. He wouldn't give us a break to save our lives. We went through every challenge under the sun by trying to do what we thought was necessary.

27:57 And again, Amanda had a great vision on what she thought the budgets should be, some of the headwinds we were going to run into, some of the challenges that we were going to have, And everything that could have went wrong went wrong. And I truly mean everything. Wow. And we are— we were still battling stuff as of this morning. I literally had 2 different plumbers coming in, one for the gas company and one for the actual plumbing company. And that was at 6 AM. And we didn't get home until 11:30 last night. Oh, we didn't leave here until 11:30 last night. Where are the kids? Luckily, luckily I have one at college, so he's on his way home. And my daughter is— we split custody, me and my ex-wife. So she's in Northern California. Amanda, her 3 boys are with their dad this week. Yeah. So it's, I mean, there's a balance to that as well. But I, in true honesty, we have not had a normal day in probably 2 months.

28:55 And I don't know who asked me this morning, but I just said, no, we won't get a vacation until like 2030. Yeah. If we're lucky, you know, and And we just want a date night. I mean, we just want to go out just one time uninterrupted. Honey, tell them about— Not Baja Sharkies, I suppose. No, we ran an errand last week for paper for the menus, and we pulled over just to grab a burger and a beer. Oh God. Yeah. Go ahead, honey, because I, I talk way too much. But— Oh no, I couldn't even get through a quarter of the beer, and we must have had like 10 calls and texts. So we're like— Like the place was burning down. Yeah. Would you trade that? No. Would you trade that to go back to— No, there's no way in hell. This is our baby. And I really mean this. Between me and Amanda, we poured our heart and soul into this place. I mean, every penny that we have ever saved is into this place.

29:50 You can tell. That's what it takes, though. Yeah. And I mean, Again, failure is not an option at this point. There's too many people that are counting on both of us, including each other. I mean, not unlike the allure of the wine trade. And I got stories I want— these stories are about your story, not mine. But the allure of the wine trade is so strong. And you already have that passion. Entrepreneurship has that same allure, right? It just has this feeling that you are in control. You may not be in control of all the individual headwinds that you encounter, but you are in control of the destiny. And you're not when you're with corporate America.

30:31 So I was balancing 2 different things. Sorry, honey, I wasn't sure if I cut you off, but my family's been independent operators for at least 45 or 50 years. My dad's had many restaurants, many operations. Both of my younger siblings have their own establishments too. Like, it's always been a passion of ours to just do something on our own. And being in corporate America, I was just too, you know, zoned into what I needed to do from 8 to 10 o'clock. And I was lucky to have weekends off and I had, you know, my healthcare was paid for and, you know, put my kids through private schools and all that was great. But There came a time when you're like, I can't give this company 200% anymore. They don't fucking deserve it. And that's truly what it came down to. That's right. If I give them 200%, what is my family getting? And I don't want to go home spent. I could barely keep my head above water.

31:34 Poor Amanda. We would leave here at 11, 12, 1 o'clock in the morning. And between the driveway and the first light on the corner is less than a 10th of a mile. And she'd put her head on my shoulder and she would— Wow. And I'm like, I know, I know you're fucking tired. I still got to drive home, you know? And it's still— You're exhausted too. But no matter what, neither one of us will ever let each other down. That's the one thing between the two of us. There's a partnership and a level of love that neither one of us had before. And that's the reason why there's no way either one of us are going to let each other fail. The other thing I truly want to mention, I know I need to stop talking, but I told Amanda when I first met her that she will never, ever, ever have to go through life on her own ever again. She now has a partner in crime in everything that she does. So she never— she'll never need to suffer in anything, whether it's even laundry or dishes or financial. Yeah. Or the boys, or whatever the case may be. Our general manager came to work for us, and it's a huge overtaking. Like he's a young man; he's never done what we're asking him to do. And I said, "Dude, you are blessed that you have us because you will never have to work a day on your life on your own.

32:58 You have us as leaders and people who are hands-on in everything we do." The young Our staff, every single one of them has the same exact treatment in everything they do. I'm mopping floors, I'm doing dishes. Amanda's doing 100 other things in here all at the same time. She's doing all the cooking and basically all the cleaning. And we have people that we are paying, they're on the payroll. But if we can't do it, then— sorry, if it's good enough for us, it's definitely good enough for you. But you'll never be on your own. And that's something we appreciate. That's a huge thing. Every single day. I mean, you talk about the woman that you displaced originally when, when the restaurant left, and I don't think people realize the impact they have on someone like that whose life is always teetering on, who knows, financial, social, political ruin. And that one little thing like losing your job for even a couple of weeks. Yeah. I mean, when Starbucks closed here on 14th, we heard an earful of, of from the people working there, like, what am I going to do? Where am I going to go? I don't have that much time to dilly-dally around. So that's really an amazing feeling for an employee. In all fairness, we interviewed everybody that was on the old regime staff.

34:14 Well, excuse me. We did it for the sake of like, would you fit in what we're trying to do? Do you understand where we're coming from? Do you understand our passion? And can you at least meet us halfway? Yeah. And a few of them did. We kept a couple of them. Generationally, we have issues. I mean, there's that kind of thought process isn't very prevalent with some of these generations behind us, particularly even on the wine drinking side. For me, it was really— I think that was my number one priority with the front of the house and, you know, opening this is if you don't have good staff that are going to create and carry out the experience that you want your guests to have, then you're going to fail. I mean, how many times have you gone to a place where it's like the food is great, but the service was shitty? You know, like the experience was crappy because, yeah, you know, it kind of ruins the whole experience for you. And again, wine's about connection. So we worked really hard to build a team that we knew could connect with our customers. And they're not all, you know, experts at wine.

35:17 Most of them just have a passion for it. That's lovely. Yeah, most of them just have a passion for it. And we've taken a lot of time to train them, and we've brought in suppliers to train them as much as possible. And I think it's great to hear which wines that they've really, like, grown to love and why, you know, whether it's the story behind. Yeah, on why they chose that. You know, when the— with the Wine of the Month Club, since we didn't get a chance to see the person's face, I, I— every month I tasted everything we were selling that month, the selection. And I can't tell you how many customers on the phone not seeing anybody's faces or expression, would say, what did you like? To a person that's not educated in wine, but they tasted the wines and they can say, I tasted this and I really like this. Or if you like this style, you like that style. I think I told you when we were here last, this— the irony between the 2 experiences I had almost back to back. One was in Palermo. Did I tell you that story? No. Okay, so we were in Palermo at the seaside restaurant, the new little village they've done over there. It's really nice, really fun. And the restaurant was a fish restaurant, obviously.

36:23 And I think the guy was Serbian, the song. And I ordered a Guido del Passo, you know, the Antonori. You told me this story. I told you this story. And this guy, I was enamored to watch him take such passion to open the bottle and decant it for us. You know, I just thought, wow, this guy really loves what he's doing. And then we were in Beverly Hills at a fancy tasting. And oh my goodness, they had some just bored the stiff out of me. Just, and I thought, this is the difference. Yeah. Because it's not about the juice is important. You've got to have good juice. We're going to talk about that right now. But then you got to make it feel good. You got to make people feel like they're really getting something special. Yeah. You got to make them feel the backstory to it and like they're there and they're in a different place.

37:06 And, you know, they're— everything about wine is So when you get a sommelier in here, when you get somebody in here, you guys taste 60 wines a day, and somebody comes in, and there's a whole bunch of stuff on LinkedIn about how to approach it. And I'm an old sales guy. I spent my career at Xerox in the beginning. So I learned all those techniques and all that type of sales business. But I had a certain type of salesperson that would come into the wine shop at Wine of the Month Club and say, and I would immediately know, like, Where this person's coming from, what their goals are. That happened yesterday. These make me cringe. I want to strangle them. I swear to God, that happened yesterday. Really? So tell me about it. You don't have to name any names, but what was it? What was working? So again, we poured our heart and soul into this business, right?

37:54 And everything that we do is 100% Chuck and Amanda and everything that we ooze out of us. But this gentleman went out of his way yesterday, probably half a dozen to a dozen times, to tell us what we needed. And every time he opened up his mouth and he says, I'll tell you what you need, and I literally want to climb over the bar and choke him out. And Amanda says, honey, if it was a female and she was to do that, you wouldn't be that way. And I said, I'll take someone's recommendation. But after the 5th or 6th time you're telling me what we need, well, do you think we fucking built this place without you? Yes. Do you have any idea how hard it was for us to get to this point? And you're going to tell us that we're missing a single region, whatever the hell it is, on our wine list? If it doesn't marry with every single dish that's on our menu, we won't even consider it. But you're going to come off the street, and tell us that we need a Spanish red and a sake in a Mediterranean place. And I wanted to just climb over the counter and kill them.

39:02 So— I think it's like what we talked about earlier. There's just this perception, because it happens so often, of people trying to get into the wine industry, whether making their own brand labels or opening a wine bar. And they usually don't know that much about wine. So I think there's a perception when people come in that they don't understand that we have the background in many different ways. Well, but with good salesmanship, and everybody that called on me because they're regulars every Tuesday knew how I bought, and they knew I wasn't going to throw any punches. And you don't seem like the type to throw any punches. Maybe you'll squeeze a buck or two out of the whole, you know, case one price or whatever, but you have an earnest value built into this place that you want to make sure is expressed with what's on the shelf. Why aren't we asking questions about that philosophy of you so that we can align our focus. In all fairness, there were plenty of wines that we will probably buy from the gentleman, but just every time he opened up his mouth and continued to tell us what we needed, like, do you have any idea what we just went through in the last 35 days? It has. It has.

40:11 And you think we're missing one red by the glass in your portfolio? It just blew my mind. That's going to change the projection of the whole thing. Shit for brains. Like, I'm not joking. We just worked 22 hours a day for the last month. If we're missing something, it— I mean, it could have been on backorder. It could have just fell through the cracks. It could have been something else. But just his approach to how it was necessary for us to listen to him, I tuned him out from hello. And I'm sorry. I just— it's just the god-honest truth. Like, if you're not going to meet me halfway and understand our passion and what we're trying to do, then we're just not for you. You know, to your point, a good salesperson learns, you know, it comes in like, what's your concept? You know, what type of wines are you bringing in? What's your price range? Before they ever showcase any wines.

41:02 There was 2 Southern reps right when I sold the— right when I was selling the company, 2 new Southern reps came in and they were young guys. And we were in the tasting room and they're like, they had sort of the same attitude, right? And so I thought, and they go, you know, we're both WSET 1. I'm like, you know what, that's— I think I've heard enough. So I made them come into my conference room and sit them down and say, so what? I don't care. I go, you have to have WSET 1 just to get a job. So tell me why you are— what you're going to do for me is going to help me. And they just stood there like, it's like their second sales call in their career. In the chat.

41:43 So, so what do you do when you— when they come in besides trying to interpret their technique? What do you look for? What are you looking for in a wine? I'm just looking— oh yeah, I leave all the wine stuff for Amanda. I know exactly what I like from the second I taste it. I put on a straight poker face. I let her take the notes. I let her figure out what she wants, and then we'll come back and we'll regroup. But in all fairness, I want to treat this— cheers. Cheers. I want to treat this as Amanda's baby more than mine. This is a dream of mine. And from the very beginning, I told Amanda, as a good partner and someone who loves her with all my heart, my job every single day is to elevate her. If I can't take time out of my own day and elevate my wife, my partner in crime, and everything that we do, Are you taking notes on this? This is true. He tells our GM that every day. Are you taking notes? I, I'm not joking. So I'm no good to Amanda if I can't elevate her. And we both had relationships that probably fell a little bit short. But if I can't give her the level of comfort and support that she needs to be the amazing person that she is, that I know she is, then what am I doing? I'm doing everything wrong. And there's going to be a day where she's going to need me and I'm going to need her. And the fact that we hold no punches to each other, we tell everybody every single secret that we, we go through every single day. But that's my— so when it goes back to the wine, I trust her in everything

43:16 that we do. What do you look for? I'm not sure if I can let my wife listen to this, but she'll listen to it anyway. We have very— we worked together for 35 years. She might. Your wife is a lovely young woman. We had a window between us. She would close it when she didn't want to hear what I was talking about, but that's different. But what do you— I mean, you have an incredibly interesting list here. I remember the first thing I looked at, I said, wow, this has been thought through. You know, it's not just Southern coming in and printing the menu for you kind of thing. No, we didn't ask anybody for one fucking penny. So what are you looking for to round this list out? For us, we're looking for, I think, balanced and approachable wines. And, you know, I think— In all fairness, it has to marry to our menu. That's the one thing that I tell our staff, every single server. If you can't draw something from the right and something from the left, it doesn't matter where they meet, somewhere the lines got to cross. Like, they get— you got to connect them in everything that we do, whether it's bubbles for oysters or whatever the case may be. Like, we've thought of everything, and I don't think our Our list sucks. So someone coming in and telling us what we need, again, is just a complete turn-off. So let me ask you this question, because this is— food pairing is an interesting subject in our industry, and some people don't believe it. I'm a little skeptical on it necessarily, just because of, you know, what I like and what you like are 2 different things. But I think it's a great premise to start with, to say, okay, in typical, if we're going to have oysters de la

44:47 Saône or some kind of very fresh salt And there's a quote from Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast, this story about Paris, which he tells us in his way how he drank the white crisp wine and ate the oysters. And I began to make plans. Like, it just changed his perspective on things. I read it all the time. It's a really cool comment. I'll send it to you. But do you look at it that way? Like, we're gonna— do customers walk in and say, Just, do we know yet if the customers are going to ask us, we trust your judgment, we like oysters or something? Yeah, we look at it that way. We're not, you know, when we're tasting the wines, it's not about like, oh, this will go with this dish. For us, it's just in general, you know, like what we enjoy drinking, we know are going to go with the foods on the menu. And I think, you know, everybody's palate's different. We have 1 or 2 wines on our menu that are definitely crowd pleasers that, Our staff loves it. You're going to be like Stella, right? Like, you know, they run out every other week. I'm joking.

45:53 You know, you have to meet people halfway, but we definitely have trained our staff that, you know, there are ways to educate staff or educate the customers in a gentle way if they are looking at that buttery shard or, you know, where can we like kind of change their perspective a little bit to find something on our list that will still be what they're looking for, but maybe be more our style of wine that we're drinking. And I think your palate just changes all the time. I've seen our staff's palate change over the last couple of weeks. I remember— It's fun though, isn't it? I know. I remember being on a business trip with my boss, Joey Tunsley, and I bought a bottle that I had loved in my 20s. And I was like, this is a great wine. And it wasn't a bad vineyard, still isn't a bad winery.

46:51 And I opened the bottle and I was like, wow, this wine is not what I remember it to be. That's interesting. Yeah. And he's like, well, I don't think that the wine has changed. He's like, I think your palate has changed because the last 3 or 4 years you've been drinking my style of wines. And we spend a lot of time traveling together and having dinners together. So my style of wine changed to what he preferred. It wasn't a bad thing. The style that I think we gravitate to is more like that clean, not oaky, just really letting the vineyards tell the story and not over-influencing the wines and just really wanting to let the varietals themselves show through. You believe— this has lots of controversy. We're almost out of time here.

47:44 What goes together, what grows together goes together. Do you believe in that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's something, in my opinion, I agree with that. You get a lot of headwinds on that comment, but going to Sicily, for instance, and having a Nerello Mascalese or a Cataratto or something like that, and you just kind of go, wow. Some of my favorite wines that are not necessarily well known, but because they're so influenced by the Mediterranean and the salt air, it just You just get it and it has to work. There has to be this human connection between the wine and the soil and the food. I believe that. I got to jump in too. And I know I've— Please do. Way too much.

48:27 I am a firm believer every single day your palate not just changes, but it adapts to things that you like and you start to train yourself on things that work for your palate and what you enjoy. What kills us is how many things are commercial. And what is commercial, everybody thinks is supposed to be good. And our goal, every single person coming in here, is for us to show you something that isn't commercial and to train your palate to actually what is drinkable and enjoyable. And that's our goal every single step of the way. We had a couple of gentlemen from New York stop in literally first day, and they parked outside and they ordered a bottle of Nebbiolo. Really? And they were like, wow, it's $80.

49:20 Domestic Nebbiolo? For a bottle. $80 for a bottle. Yeah, they were like, $80 for a bottle of Nebbiolo? Like that? No. But it wasn't Piemontese. It was a domestic Nebbiolo. No, it's not. It's not domestic. I think it's right down there, honey. But the long and the short is he says, you know, have you ever thought about like reducing your price from like $14 a glass to like $12? And I said, no. I said, what do you think you're gonna get for $12? Yeah. Like, do you really think you're gonna get a quality wine for $12? Yeah. Because I'm serving you what we think is the highest quality wine that you will, you'll be able to purchase for $14. And if you don't think you could stretch your budget $2 more to get something that we think is fantastic, Versus what the consumer thinks is supposed to be awesome at either Safeway or BevMo or Trader Joe's or whatever the hell the case may be. If you can't see that what we're trying to offer you as an experience for $2 more isn't worth it for you to sit here and enjoy a glass of wine with us, maybe we're not fit. Well, no, that's a good point. Is that restaurants right now are definitely ruining the industry in some sense because it is the same. 10 wines on every wine list across the country. And again, you know, 99% of America doesn't live here in California within driving distance to wineries and vineyards and the, you know, exposure that they would have here. So I think they've been trained, to Chuck's point, to drink what is on those

50:50 menus. I hate shit. You know, you know the reason for that. I mean, you, you sat in all the sales meetings all your life, and people are going to go to Hawaii if they sell 10 cases of Josh and get in there, and the poor little winery that makes better wine doesn't get a fair shake. But it seems like the client here over time will appreciate this mentality and this outlook and want to come in because you just defined the regular issue that was at my dad's store in 1975 in Palos Verdes. You know, you sold the stuff that people bought at some point, and you hope they educate along the way. Do, because what does support the wine trade is that supermarket shelf where everything probably tastes the same, right? And that you are fortunate to understand the difference and teach the difference. And that's the value. And I think customers will appreciate that over time. They'll understand what your objective is. It seems, you know, I had this experience just over the weekend. One of my favorite wines in Napa is called Ad Vivum. There's a guy named Chris Phelps. He worked at Petrus. He worked of Dominus. But he makes this incredibly complex cap out of Yonville.

52:02 And I took— I didn't take it. I sold some to my friend, and then she brought it to dinner down in Newport Beach. And we both were just flabbergasted at the complexity and the value. And she's not a sophisticated drinker. She's a good drinker. She understands wine. She likes Austin Hope in general. She likes Caymus, all the regular stuff. But then And I want— the question is here, you will see, or do you think you'll see, bringing in a novice, somebody that's just learning, and you give them that really interesting, complex, layered wine, and they go, whoa, you know, lights go on. And everybody can agree to that, I think. Yeah. And honestly speaking, like, you can go across the street and grab every single commercial wine you can think of, And they're priced very fairly. And I'm not knocking, you know, whoever it is, but the fact of the matter is, if we try to elevate your experience and it costs you literally 120 cents, it's so minimal that— 120 cents. Yeah, I like that. You can't even wrap your mind around something like so petty. Like, you can't even go to Starbucks and grab a cup of coffee at less than $4.

53:12 If we elevate your experience for $2 more, You got to appreciate that. And in all fairness, and I know this is a dream of both of ours, but this should be a destination in a year. We should have people coming from all over LA and our surrounding areas to come visit not just me and Amanda, our dream and our passion, but just to be part of the— what we're— part of what we're trying to do every single day. And I— that's the one thing when you asked me, like, what— why we think we're going to be successful. And I think it's this. It is that. It's this because we're not doing something commercial and we are doing everything in our power to prove that we are leaps and bounds above everybody else. It's sorely needed. Yeah. Well, we are out of time. And this— I know we could talk forever. We could talk all day. And we're going to do it. We're going to come back without a doubt. I love that. We're actually down here for 3 weeks starting the 23rd.

54:14 So we'll come in and share glass. Nothing, comp. I want to participate in supporting the brand. And this is really exciting. I'm really excited. We didn't even talk about the brand. Yes. Which that, and if we have 30 more seconds, but— Oh, please do. Amanda and Joey have, well, Joey, mostly Joey. Joey has been truly a blessing for Amanda. Joey is. Joey Fentley, my friend. So Joey and Amanda have been collaborating to try to do something under Amanda's personal label. And when you come in for the experience, please enjoy a glass of Malandrini, Malandrina, and just look at the label.

54:57 This is like full circle, everything that we do. Amanda has gone up there and picked the grape leaves that we're serving daily from Joey's vineyard. Joey walked the vineyards with— Are you— no salt in the hoop? You put them in brine? Yeah, you just boil them and then— Yeah, right. Wow. But the full circle is Joey has been Amanda's true mentor, and we're very lucky to have him on our side, and he's been just a blessing. But Amanda goes up there and she's like, I walked his vineyard. I kind of like what I'm seeing. I, you know, So and so and so and so. And Joey says, well, how do we make this for you? And part of how we came to this was the fact that Amanda wanted to do kind of her own little wine bar. And it was just like a little pop-up where she can promote her own label.

55:50 And this came about. But what I wanted to say was it's so full circle, not just from Joey giving us a hand, Amanda picking the grape leaves off the vine, to coming home and like rolling the grape leaves herself. But I'm going to call him our 11-year-old son, even designed the labels. And when you see it, I mean, it's just truly breathtaking. People, people don't believe us. And then I go to the office, I grab my briefcase, and I was like, here's the sketches from Nathan. Yeah. And I'm like, the kid didn't even charge us a patent for this thing. Oh, he charged me. All right. Well, he charged you, but he didn't charge us. Of course, tomorrow you go home, he'll be reading a book on patent and trademarks. Yeah, right. But that's truly how family-oriented we are. Like, everybody who we run into, we want them to just feel our love and just understand that's why we will be who we are. There must be a Palestinian saying, like, we spoke— my parents spoke Turkish in the house, they speak Armenian— that says good luck or, you know, good courage, bon courage in French.

56:54 Yeah, it must be something like that. There is. I don't know how this came about because my father— I never met my grandfather. My grandfather, his name is Shukri, which comes from the word giving thanks. And I don't know how it came about that it just fit who I am or it helped me be the person I am. Just understanding that that's who he was and that's what he stood for. We are very grateful. And you'll see that every single person who would walk through these doors, if they can't feel our love for who we are to each other, then, you know, maybe we're not for you. But that's our goal. That's our passion. And that's who we stand for. So my father would say in Arabic, which is like, good job, good boy. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

57:46 Thank you for being on the show. Truly an honor. Thank you. My pleasure.