We recently connected with Alex Manfredonia and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Alex thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The concept behind VIN 909 Winecafe’ was a collaboration between myself, my father and our founding chef. My father was the president of a restaurant group in DC for over 20 years. I worked in his restaurants in my youth and then branched off to California where I continued in the restaurant industry trying every job from dishwasher to server and eventually moving into fine dining and management. During my time in California, I met our founding Chef at a high end restaurant in San Francisco, Bix. Our combined experiences and the opportunity to purchase the property that became Vin 909’s home led to the development of our concept of providing high quality locally sourced food in a warm neighborhood environment.

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.

The restaurant group that my father led had a concept that was counter service restaurants and catering. They served high quality Mediterranean and Italian food to the DC lunch crowd. They called this concept “Brown Bag Gourmet.” All my summer jobs since the age of 12 were working in my fathers company. I learned a lot about restaurants and how to be a strong employee during those formative years. In 1992 I packed my bags and moved to California for college. I continued working in restaurants because that is what I knew.

Over the years I moved into fine dining and wine. Being in San Francisco provided me the unique opportunity to learn about not just California wines but also French and Italian wines as well. After passing the first level of the somalier test I knew that I wanted to continue to learn as much as I could about wine so that I could share my love with others and they could see how approachable wine can be.

During my time in California, I learned the things that elevated restaurants, I learned all of the ways owners can make a restaurant great or not. I learned how to manage a restaurant. So, when my family approached me and said they wanted to open a restaurant all together, I jumped at the chance to put all that I had learned over the 20 years in the industry to work.

Any advice for managing a team?

In all of my years in the restaurant industry, nothing is more humbling than actually doing the various jobs in a restaurant. I have been a dishwasher, cook, bus boy, server, bartender, manager, and now owner. No amount of schooling could have taught me what my life experiences have taught me. Those experiences have made me an empathetic employer with a high bar. I know what can and should be done. I understand the demands of the job and I will work along side anyone in my restaurant. As a result of this, I have staff who have stayed with us for over 10 years because they know I have their back.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Since our opening in 2011, Vin has strived to provide a high end restaurant experience in a very approachable way. We want folks to feel comfortable in our space so we don’t offer reservations because it is not most important to us that we make additional turns, it is more important to us that people feel comfortable and can enjoy their meal. We want folks to feel comfortable with our food so we offer excellent simple food like a Margherita pizza or a slider and we also offer a pizza called the Rockstar with fois gras, truffle, and black garlic. For us it is a balance between simple and high end and giving the customer the choice. The same goes for our wine. Our 80+ wine offerings includes 40 offerings by the glass and our staff is trained to help our guests feel comfortable with our wine program.

Over 13 years, we have maintained this consistent vision. As a result we have many regulars that come back weekly.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.vin909wine.com
• Instagram: vin909wine
• Facebook: Vin 909 Winecafe
• Yelp: Vin 909 Winecafe