Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Vince Lendacki. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Vince thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

Downtown Charleston, S.C. is a gorgeous blend of history, culture, and architecture. A beautiful city with beautiful weather where people love walking the streets. Aside from the city market, you would expect to see vibrant and unique street vendors every other block. If you do some research, however, you will find that it’s not so easy getting a street vendor’s permit, and that was one of the quick reality checks I had on my path to starting a business.

I was the bar manager at Amen Street Fish and Raw Bar, on the corner of East Bay and Cumberland Street near the city cruise ship dock. I had grown as a bartender, mixing tasty drinks, creating a hospitable atmosphere, and crafting the best oyster shooters in town. I was getting so good at what I did, that eventually I was getting booked by national brands to showcase their products at big time events. Bacardi, for example, hired me to sling my lime rickey style oyster shooter, the “Rickey Bacardo” at Rum Fest that year. A fresh popped oyster, topped with a bright lime mignonette and fresh mint, chased with a chilled swig of Bacardi Lime and Topo Chico. We thought, “150 oysters should be plenty, not everyone is going to want to have rum and OYSTERS…” We got caught with our pants down, and slung 170 oyster shooters in 90 minutes. That was my first real dose of validation. “This is real. What you’re doing is epic, and people want it.” As if I didn’t have enough validation from friends, locals, and regulars, I also received praise from countless tourists from around the world. I wanted to take my tasty ideas, my one-of-a-kind oyster shooters, and sling them on my own.

“What about an oyster cart?”, I thought. Setting up on a corner, or even at the cruise ship dock, like Aria’s assassin oyster cart in Game Of Thrones, proclaiming, “oysters, clams and cockles!” People from around the world would step foot in Charleston S.C. and their first taste of the city would be my top-tier oyster shooters. “I’d be doing the city a favor!”, I thought to myself. Genuinely cool as that may have been, turns out there’s a lot the city doesn’t want. They don’t want you on the street. They certainly don’t want you on the dock. There is a finite amount of designated peddlers’ areas, and those are already taken up by hotdog stands and Italian ice carts…. “How would I even get a business license for that? What kind of permit would I need? What about DHEC, the Department of Health and Environmental Control, what would they have to say about my popping raw oysters on the sidewalk?” I had lots of questions and concerns, but fortunately, I had resources.

Two of my good friends had started a bartending catering service called the Watering Hole, and I worked for them any chance I could. They were a wealth of information and experience, and they also had these really sick custom portable bars. “Hey Hollis, who built these?” “Oh that’s our friend Clay. He can build anything. He’s really good.” Soon I met Clay at a local beach bar, we had a couple pints, and talked about my idea. I decided I didn’t want a cart, but rather a bar that I could fold flat and take with me like a surfboard. He pulled out a pen and drew a very symmetrical blueprint on a bar napkin. A month or so later I had my cool bar, and that was about all I had. It was January of 2020, and you can guess what happened soon after that.
By the end of the year, I wanted out of my current situation. I was ready to go out on my own, or at least try. Amen Street was my home for the last 6 years, and the first big step was walking away from 1) a steady paycheck, 2) an endless supply of oysters, and 3) a stage to sling from. Right around that time I was asked to be the bartender at Rebel Taqueria, a Star Wars themed taco tequila bar in North Charleston, a very refreshing change from what I had been doing the last half a decade. Problem 1 solved. There I was reacquainted with a colleague Nate, who had also just left the East Bay neighborhood, and the bartending life, to work for Lowcountry Oyster Farm as their main sales guy. Problem 2 solved. I had done a lot of collaborative work with Revelry, a popular local brewery, and two of their main guys, Danny and Peter, were about to leave and open their own spot, Tobin’s Market. They were going to be looking for live music and local pop ups, and instantly wanted my oyster shooters. Problem 3 solved.

The paperwork side of the business was a lot less daunting when I actually got into it. It really just took some time in front of the computer, setting up accounts, and figuring out where and to whom I had to pay licensing fees. I sent as many kind emails to city offices as I thought necessary, and the short answer I got back was… everyone…You gotta pay to play….Fortunately, as a new business with no sales, fees were minimal.

With all of that, came my name. What was I going to call myself? What are my oyster shooters? Hot sauces. Citrus. Mignonettes. “Vin”-egar based toppings…. My instructions were always, “Eat your oyster. Take your time. Take a breath. Take your shot.” Vin and shots…Shots And Vin. You’re doing oyster shooters with me, Vince. Most of your oysters have a vinegar-based sauce on them. I’m cooking with beer, wine, liquor, all the above. It’s raw. It’s creative as shit. By January 31st of 2021, in the middle of Winter Storm Orlena, Shots And Vin, “Raw Creativity” had its first gig at Tobin’s.

I tried to keep it as straight forward as possible. Set up shop with a menu of three. 1 for $6, 2 for $10. Try and sell 100. I did pretty well considering it was raining, so I started coming back every other week or so, and eventually every week, weather permitting. Tobin’s was on track to be voted the Charleston City Paper’s Best New Bar 2021, and I got to be right in the middle of it. Live music every night, a great blend of young and old customers, and people new where to find me. Business was booming.

Amidst the success, I started to notice how the rest of my life was slowly changing, or rather NOT changing. I was working five bar shifts a week at Rebel, and trying to do one pop up a week, which left me with one day off, when I was likely thinking about work. I still had a great attitude about everything, I wasn’t burnt out yet, but I started to see the cracks forming. My home life was starting to suffer. I wasn’t sleeping well. Nothing else was getting done. What little time I had left for myself was spent “adulting”, cleaning, errands, bills, regular responsibilities. There was no time for me to relax and just…breath. It gets hot quick in the South, and summer was approaching. Gigs were getting sweatier and sweatier, and I thought, how am I going to keep doing this? Then it hit me… “Who was saying I HAD to do anything?” “I am the company. I am in control.” “There is nothing stopping me from taking a step back to regroup and relax.” I made the decision to take a break for the summer, and that was one of the wisest things I’ve done as a business owner.

Shots and Vin, to this day, is a humble company that does epic shit. I have incrementally grown, at my own pace. Dialing it in, making sure that the quality is always there. Controlling what I can as long as I can. Yes, I could cut it loose and blow up with big ads, a website, all the things. But as desirable as it is to grow fast and get rich quick, I think there’s a great value in translating my hard work into rock solid foundation, so when it’s time, I can choose to jump and bust through that ceiling, on my own terms, with a safe and strong place to land.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

So, my name is Vince Lendacki. I grew up in South Jersey with a big extended family. Lots of fun aunts uncles and cousins, who got together multiple times a year to share good food, good drink, and lots of laughs. Everyone was always welcome at the table and there was always plenty to go around, especially on Christmas Eve, when we did our own rendition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes, or rather, Seven Seafoods. We threw down hard, and from a young age I learned the value of a good party, the spirit of genuine hospitality, and even some salesmanship.

Dishes like clams casino, shrimp cocktail, and linguini alici were everyone’s favorite, and once they hit the table they didn’t last long. But oyster shooters…those took some effort. My sister compiled a family Christmas Eve recipe book a while back, and on the last page she put oyster shooters with the note, “Did you really think you could escape them?!” Not everyone wanted to slug back an oyster with straight vodka, cocktail and hot sauce, let alone more than once. Eventually I was put in charge of them, partly because I was the youngest and people had a tougher time saying no to “happy cousin Vin.” The slippery spicy shots stayed a fun family tradition, and that was pretty much that.

By the time I left NJ to attend the College of Charleston in S.C., I had worked my way through restaurants slinging subs, running food, waiting tables, and eventually bartending and managing. In 2015 I took the job as bar manager of a fish and raw bar downtown. I was given full creative rein over the beer wine and cocktail program, which included, as fate would have it, a locally notorious Bloody Mary oyster shooter. In the back of my mind, I always thought, “How cool would it be if we had different flavors of oyster shooter, maybe put into a flight?” After my first year or two, I revisited the idea. Fueled by family tradition and creative know how, I gave it my best shot, pun intended.

It was the second week of the new year in 2017, and I attempted a red curry duck style shooter. My last job was at a great Thai restaurant, where we prepared fried duck with a sweet and spicy red curry, snow peas, green peas, tomato, pineapple, bell pepper, and basil. I took the fruit and veggies, infused them in gin, and then made a simple red curry that my mom used to make us. Together with an oyster in a shot glass, the result was…ok. Not bad, but not great.

My chef at the time asked me to write down the main ingredients of the curry for him. Tomato paste, coconut milk, green onions, lime juice, etc. The next day I came to work he prepared a dry mixture of the curry ingredients. Instead of tomato paste, he finely chopped tomato skins. Instead of coconut milk, toasted coconut. Instead of scallions, thinly sliced spring onion whites. Fresh lime zest on top. Rather than put it in a glass with a shucked oyster, we put the mixture on top of a fresh popped oyster, and chased it with the chilled gin infusion. Since I used our house gin, Gordons, I called the shooter, the “Gordon Bombay”. #AMightyDuck We ran it as a weekend special and it absolutely slayed. “What are you going to do next week?”, people asked.

I had spent the better part of the last two years making candied bacon bourbon gingers, so I thought, “What if I used my bacon bourbon somehow? “Pickle back” shots were pretty common, and that inspired me to present a pickle brined oyster, AS the pickle back, after you took a swig of bacon bourbon. The “Piggy Back” was a hit. Then I had a really yummy mango salsa recipe, and recently learned the joys of mango mezcal, and so “The Flamenco” came next. I ran a new shooter special every week and set out to see how many I could do in a row. By the summer I had a couple dozen under my belt and thought, “If I make it to New Years, that’s 50 in a row.”

Whatever was going on with sports, holidays, popular movies and tv, even the weather, I saw opportunity. “Shooter McGavins”, “On The Third Day Rose’s, “Fire Roosters”, “Cherry Trees”, “Dark and Storm Troopers”, “Belmont Steaks”, “Westside Story’s”. I was inspired by the world around me. Also, the immediate world in front of me, my bar, kept a steady group of beer wine and liquor reps around. As they tried to sell me alcohol, I had to taste and learn.

I became “that account” that reps would love to come to. I gave them the time of day, genuinely listened to what they were pitching, and even if I didn’t pick up their product for the back bar, I might try to use it for an oyster shooter. The reps would get a placement, the restaurant had a new special, and I made a lot of positive relationships. The juices were flowing, I kept the streak alive, and by the end of the year I accomplished my goal. 50 original combinations, all in the style of fresh popped tasty oysters, with tasty toppings, paired with tasty chasers, and ALL with a delicious pun.

Even though I gave my mind a break for the first couple months of the new year, I really couldn’t turn it off. I had forced myself to think about flavors, combinations, names and puns for so long, that it just stuck. Any given conversation, song lyric, or movie line could trigger my brain into going, “Ha, that’d be a great name for an oyster shooter. What would it have to be?” So, over the next few years, I kept coming up with shooters, honing my craft, and building a reputation for myself as one of the more creative bartenders in town.

People kept asking me, “When are you going to have your own bar?” I knew what they meant, but, I thought smaller and more practical. I wanted to start my own raw bar catering service. By the beginning of 2020 I had a collapsable 6 ft bar built, one that I could fit a couple of coolers underneath, fold completely flat, and take with me in my mini cooper. I even finally caved and got a smart phone so I could start an Instagram (True story, I have had a flip phone since I was in high school, and now I have two lines. My flip, and my work phone)….Then the pandemic, and the rest of everyone’s stressful turn of the decade happened…I was ready for a positive change.

I took a job at a new taco tequila bar on the opposite side of town. The bar shifts paid the bills, and the owners graciously let me use the kitchen as a commissary so I could start my catering business legit. In 2021 I formed Shots And Vin, “Raw Creativity.” Slowly but surely, I started popping up around town slinging fresh new oyster shooters. Word spread about what I was doing, and what I was doing was dope. One venue turned into multiple venues. Public pop ups turned into private events. Weddings. Art shows. Golf tournaments. Even national festivals. My third year in, I now have a nice blend of consistent gigs around Charleston and the state, and I have developed over 220 named oyster shooters and counting. From backyard casino themed birthday parties to 8000 person oyster festivals, I am in demand.

A lot of services and companies pitch a “one of a kind” experience. What separates me from them is, well, quite frankly, what I do IS one of a kind. I have successfully redefined what it means to “shoot an oyster”. No one does what I do, to the extent that I do it, the way I do it. I am a Jersey raised Southern schooled hybrid of a hospitality professional. I bring a potent blend of serious “front of house” skills and extensive “back of house” knowledge. I take a raw oozing creative process and refine it into something truly polished. I provide outrageous culinary delights wrapped in my own brand of hospitality, catered not just TO you, but FOR you, and that natural foundation of “service” clearly shows.

When I think about my company, there’s plenty to reflect on and be grateful for. It really makes me smile when people give rave reviews and tell me how they’ve never enjoyed oysters so much. It is cool for me to think about how far I’ve come in the kitchen, how deadly I am behind the bar, and how deep I’ve gotten into the sauce game. The most important thing, however, at the center of it all, is having fun.

My entire business model is based on coming up with clever and punny names and working backwards to translate the name into flavors. For the sake of a good joke, I have broadened my horizons, expanded my palate, and learned recipes and techniques I never cared to try. I have gained this power to take an abstract idea and manifest it into the culinary world as one of the most oddly specific things…an oyster shooter. And because I had a good time doing it, because I thought it was funny, that enthusiasm, that intention, delightfully translates into my work, and you can taste it. I am literally serving you what fun tastes like. And you love it.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

In 2022 I started popping up at different venues around town. Usually, since I was setting up outside at breweries and bar patios, people would have their dogs with them. One day, this woman showed up with a TINY puppy. Fresh out of the oven. I went over to her and asked, “Can I please take a picture of your adorable puppy with an oyster shooter?” His name was Potato. Hilarity and cuteness ensued. A few weeks later I met Fiddler, yet another weeks old puppy. And then there was Larry, ANOTHER young pup, who donned ski goggles and a bow tie. By the time I met Burt Reynolds, I was like, “O.K. I need to do something with all these puppy photos.” So I had the idea to do a puppy oyster shooter calendar, named for the hashtag from my Instagram posts #FreshPuppedOysters.

The rest of the year, I sniffed out new puppies (Ha!). If there was a friend with a cute new dog, I was there with an oyster shooter. If I was walking down the street and saw a tiny puppy, I would walk right up to that complete stranger, quickly explain who I was, what I was doing, and could we please set up a photo shoot. I had no shame. They loved it. Soon I had a dozen puppies, all less than 6 months old, and the 2023 Fresh Pupped Oyster Calendar was born.

Before long I started racking up more puppy shots. Jiffy the 4 month old Corgi. Levi the yellow Lab. Odin the Great Pyrenees, God of Fluff and Belly Rubs. I was even in Spain with my sister this past summer, and seeing all the people walking dogs I thought, “Oh man, how epic would it be if I got a Fresh Pupped Oyster photo in Barcelona…” A day later I was waiting for the elevator in our Air BnB apartment building, and as the door opened, out bounded this happy little spotted puppy named Lola. It was fate. I made it a mission to do a “Shots And Vin Goes Abroad” thing, and used my broken Spanish to go into town, find fresh oysters, use what I had in the Air BnB, and catch that fresh pup. It was great.

I decided to make the calendar a yearly thing, but this time I was going to donate the proceeds to charity. After all that cute effort, I didn’t make THAT much money, so I figured why not just do it for a good cause and help push sales. It warms my soul when I go into a restaurant and see the calendar on the open kitchen wall, or people go out of their way to tell me, “The calendar is great. The kids love it! We cant wait for Mako the Chi-Weenie in May!” Shots And Vin gets creative content, the brand becomes a household name (literally, you’re hanging it up in your house) and I get to meet puppies on the reg. I’d say it’s a pretty sweet marketing deal.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In 2021, I was a finalist in the hors d’oeuvre category of United States Oyster Festival National Oyster Cookoff. I created the Cabana Grass Oyster Shooter, and I was quite proud of this new combination. Lime juice, lime zest, shallots, jalapenos, pineapple banana vinegar, and a lemongrass pineapple banana shrub chaser…it was killer. As a finalist, I was required to travel to southern Maryland, prepare my oysters on stage in under 60 minutes to be plated in an elaborate presentation for a panel of judges, as well as provide samples for the crowd.

The flavor profile was born from a whole Barry Manilow Copacabana, Copa BANANA vibe, and my diorama was a lazy susan’s worth of spinning oyster shooters surrounded by limes and pineapple fronds. I hid a tiny Bluetooth speaker on the tray so I could play the song in a timely fashion. It was a blind tasting, and the judges were on the other side of the wall from the contest area, so I got there early to test the range of the speaker and my phone through a cement wall. Since a random volunteer was going to walk my presentation around the wall to the judges, I walked and counted the steps between the cooking and judging areas. I came to win, and I did my homework, damn it.

The night before at the meet and greet, my fellow competitors, most a good 30 years older than me, were 1, super nice and friendly, having a ball, and 2, were very impressed with what I was doing. I enthusiastically described my entry, and repeat entrants/finalists would kind of smile, look down and back up and say, “I think you’re going to win. That sounds fabulous, and so different, and you sell it so well. They are always looking for new and creative stuff.” I thought they were just being friendly, but the point was driven home the next day when they actually got to try my oyster shooters, and their faces all said the same thing….. “Fuck damn it that’s good.” People were shaking my hand, admitting unofficial defeat, hoping they just didn’t get last place.

The time came for the awards, and we were lined up on stage in front of a small baseball field’s worth of spectators. I was nervous, but excited, because it seemed like I was really going to do it. I went through all that effort, made it all the way to Maryland, and executed. “What a moment of triumph for the Shots And Vin brand. National Oyster Cook Off Champion.” The first category to be announced was mine… “And in third place…Vince Lendacki and his Cabana Grass Oyster Shooter!”… (In a field of nine finalists, that’s effectively sharing last place with the other third place winners from the other categories…) In slow motion, the other finalists all looked down the stage at me with this sad look of, “Aw…honey…” “Shit, I thought the kid was gonna win”, said one of the cooks… I sucked it up and focused on being glad for my new friend Debbie who ended up winning. Nonetheless, I was bummed. Really bummed. Almost on queue the wind picked up, the clouds rolled in, and a gnarly storm blew through and ended the day early.

The cool thing about the United States Oyster Festival is the camaraderie. Other than some new faces here and there, the same people enter the cook off and enter the National Shucking Championships every year. Sure it’s about competing, and you obviously want to win, but these people genuinely enjoy seeing each other once a year.

The next day I went back to festival. It was early, the storm had passed, the sun was out, and I was hanging with my new friends in the infield of the soon to be oyster shucking war zone. It was all good. I decided I was hungry and wanted to seek out a sandwich I spotted the day before but didn’t have the time to try. A Maryland style stuffed ham sandwich if memory serves me well. On the way to said ham, I spotted an arts and crafts table with a lot of old timey oyster prints. As I was perusing the selection, I noticed a box at the end of the table. It had a dozen or so long pieces of metal, different shades of black silver, and rusty brown. Ancient oyster knives.

‘WHOA, are these for sale?”, I asked. “Nah, they’re just there for display. If you REALLY want one you’re going to have to talk to this guy.” The gentleman motioned to the guy behind him, clearly the owner of the stand. We talked about shucking, and he explained that they were “bill shuckers” from the late 18 and early 1900s. For those of you who don’t know, a bill shucker is an oyster knife designed to go through the front of an oyster (The Bill), as is common with Chesapeake oysters, as opposed to the back (The Hinge), like you typically see. These knives were solid pieces of straight forged steel, hammered into a blade at the front, and molded to a solid heavy handle at the back. The kind of tool you would commission a blacksmith to make 100 years ago.

The owner of the stand asked me if I was competing in the shucking championship, and I told him no, I was in the cookoff. He asked me what I entered, and once I described it to him, he went, “Oh man, do you have any on you?!” I said, “Sadly no, the cookoff was yesterday.” “Dang. Because, if you had some on you, I mean, I think we could work something out”, said the man, motioning to the old knives. I thought about it, and in fact, I didn’t have to leave just yet, and everything from the cookoff was cleaned and consolidated in my car parked outside the fairgrounds. I told him if he gave me 15 minutes, I could whip some up. So I went out to my car, and using a cooler as a table top, pulled out a cutting board and effectively sliced shallots and jalapenos, juiced and zested fresh lime, and mixed up some vinegar to make my delicious mignonette in the middle of the field.

I brought back the sauce with some leftover shrub and blew this guy’s mind. “How did you not win?!”, he proclaimed. For a half dozen Cabana Grass oyster shooters, he parted with the 100+ year old knife of my choice. And as I finished my beer, I was ecstatic. Yesterday didn’t matter. In that moment, I was reminded that not only was my entry good, it was epic. So epic that a complete stranger invited me into his tent, shared his cooler, and traded me a century’s old “not for sale” piece of aquacultural history. Titles and accolades didn’t matter. I knew that I crushed it. My spirit was lifted. I found the ham sandwich I was looking for and thrived on. By the end of the month, my bar was being filmed for a tv show house party, and my leche de tigre oyster paired with a local sour, The Faber Tooth Tiger, aided Rebel Taqueria in winning the 2021 Charleston Beer Week Hop Chef Challenge.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @ShotsAndVin