I discovered my passion for wine in 2005 while taking the CMS Introductory course/exam. We worked in restaurants, consulted, and did teaching all the way up until the day we opened our own doors.ĭK: My first Sommelier role was the Head Sommelier position at The French Laundry. There are bills to pay that don’t go away. We did not take a break before opening our own restaurant.
I passed a series of wine certifications culminating in the Master Sommelier title. RF: After I broke from the easy path before me in academia, I climbed the restaurant ladder for a decade from server to beverage director. We leased a shell of a building and had to do everything (plumbing, electrical, heating and air, kitchen design) ourselves, so we freed ourselves up to be on site with our contractor daily.īetween the two of us, we have about 30 years in total of restaurant experience, in just about every position, from the kitchen to the wine cellar to the dining room. We finally both left our other positions-Ryan as General Manager of Redd Wood Matt as Education Director of Guildsomm-once buildout started, seven months before we opened. We continued to work our “real” jobs during most of this time-meaning that all of the time spent articulating the concept, securing investment, and creating the business had to occur around 50-plus hour workweeks. MS and RS: Opening Compline took over three years from the conception of the idea to opening day. Q: How long did you work the floor in other restaurants before owning your own? Were you working the floor right up until the final leap, or did you have to take some time off to turn your dream into a reality? We are excited to share wines from our neighborhood and from the larger world with everyone that walks through our door.
We wanted to add something new and unpretentious to the Napa scene-a wine bar and restaurant culture infused with discovery, excitement, and professional service. Restaurant: Compline, Napa, CA: We wanted to create a wine bar that had the wines we wanted to drink and the type of service we wanted to experience. Matt Stamp, MS, and Ryan Stetins, Advanced Sommelier. I decided that gaining experience at The French Laundry and earning the Master Sommelier Diploma could put me in position to find the right chef/business partner, raise the necessary capital, and gain the knowledge required for success. From that point on, I made every career decision with the goal of positioning myself to start my own restaurant. Restaurant: Protégé, Palo Alto, CA: When I chose a career in the restaurant business, I knew that I would eventually need to own my own place in order to have the lifestyle that I wanted. If Chris and I were going to stay in this business-which we very much wanted to-we were going to be the ones to call the shots.ĭennis Kelly, MS. We both worked so hard for so long, and we no longer wanted to give all of our energy and efforts to someone else, because it never felt fully appreciated. For the longest time I wondered “Why would anyone want to do this as a fulltime career?” Ten years later Chris and I were doing what I never before understood. I took a restaurant job as a means to pay my bills and provide a break from the monotony. I had been fully enmeshed in academia, with a slowly suffocating realization that my life would be a steady repetition of the same. Restaurant: Ungrafted, San Francisco, CA: I got into the restaurant game slightly later in life than many of my peers and even my husband. Q: How and when did you know you wanted to open your own restaurant? Rebecca Fineman at Ungrafted in San Francisco. From attracting investors to overcoming adversity on opening day, to setting the table for success, these sommelier-turned-restaurant owners have hard-won wisdom to share. And, to our great fortune, these sommeliers spilled the beans to The SOMM Journal on how they made it happen for themselves. One thing in common: Sommeliers own the restaurants.
for sale of retail bottles and to-go meals. Ungrafted, San Francisco, California is open Tuesday–Saturday from 2:00 p.m. Protégé, Palo Alto, California: Follow Protégé on Instagram for updates and reopening announcement.
Herein is Cristaldi’s article in its entirety, as well as the below information about how each restaurant featured in the article is handling the COVID-19 social-distancing mandates:Ĭompline, Napa, California is delivering locally from 11:30 a.m. If you work in the service industry, please view our List of Resources for Service Industry Workers, Restaurants, and Bars. Editor’s Note: When Jonathan Cristaldi interviewed four restaurant owners about their paths from working the floor as sommeliers to owning their own restaurants, it was before COVID-19 severely changed the service industry landscape.