We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Angela Anderson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Angela thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
In the late 2017 to 2018, we were working as business consultants helping small businesses in various fields. As we would tackle each confidential issue, we would gather a group of like-minded small business advocates to brainstorm and collectively role-play different scenarios. We would initiate a call “Syndicate Unite” and all of these advocates would meet at our house for a potluck/think tank.
During the Fall of 2018, we started getting approached by our local jurisdiction to consider opening our own wine bar. They were highly suggesting this as they knew our connection to the industry as we had been leading wine-based networking events all over town. We came up with an idea to open a brick and mortar location that could be a business lounge during the day and a wine bar at night. The City came back with a counter proposal of grant funds that would assist us in building this ideal location.
Fast forward to February 2019 and a decision was made, a location was found, and a dream became a reality. Now to tackle the name…. Immediately the idea of calling our wine bar Syndicate was floated. One individual even looked up the technical definition in Wikipedia and it stuck. A “syndicate” is a group of individuals working together for a common cause. That was us. We were working together for a common cause of assisting small businesses, but also had a love for wine.
Since this day, Syndicate Wine Bar has flourished as a wine bar, all while behind the scenes still consulting and assisting small businesses.
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.
Our participation in the wine industry began in the mid-1990’s. Angela started as a hostess at Augustine’s Restaurant while David started with the Linfield College Catering team, hosting special events throughout McMinnville, Oregon. These events included the annual International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC). From these experiences, we each learned the intricacies of customer service, food, and hospitality centering around wine and fine dining.
In 2002, we built OregonWines.com, an industry service that connects wine lovers with Oregon’s wineries. This website became a living reference for information about Oregon’s wineries, wines, and viticultural regions. Over the years, we upgraded its contents and features, including a real-time touring system before mobile apps were a thing! The site served as an industry blog and events calendar, before the domain was sold to a local winery.
Since 2013, we have focused our combined passions into hyper-local networking groups and events centered around sustainability. Our lessons learned and support from the Oregon benefit corporation community, are two reason we launched Syndicate Wine Bar. The time was right to unite our communities, to grow our networks in an inclusive and educational manner, and center it all around fantastic wine.
Our commitment to sustainability runs deep, and we have actively sought to integrate the balance of people, planet, and profit throughout business. Our business is a certified Oregon Benefit Company, which calls us to a higher purpose of serving our community and operating on values of ethics, honesty, and transparency.
Combined with our experience in the wine industry and business management, we have created Syndicate Wine Bar to offer you the very best wines, paired with unbeatable customer service, for an unforgettable experience.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
I met my co-founder/business partner in 1990. We were merely 14 years old and attending a music and drama camp. At the time and through decades we were just really good friends. Many even went so far to think that we were siblings with the way that we backed each other up and supported each other. In high school, my dad “highly suggested” that I should spend more time with this individual. I didn’t listen.
In college we both went our separate ways but kept in touch from time to time. In 201o when my father was starting to decline in health, I reached out to David to share the news and invite him to say one last good-bye. He wasn’t able to attend. My father passed away that night. A week later, David showed up at his funeral to pass along his regards. For the next 2 years we would bump into each other casually as each of us was nearing closure to different stages of our lives. In late 2012 we started recognizing that we saw something more.
Fast forward, we ended up getting married in 2014. In 2017, I joined his already existing technology company of 20 years as the Controller and Business Consultant. We started building websites for wineries and restaurants together, while adding a consulting line for businesses that were struggling on more than just tech issues. This work took us all over wine country and in and out of varying size businesses. We saw at this point that we were the ying and yang of each other, complimenting each others weaknesses and backing each other up unconditionally.
This beautiful partnership and marriage is celebrating 10 years of marriage this year and 2 different businesses. We appreciate and edify that others strengths in every movement we make towards our customers and business.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Like any business, COVID 19 was a pivotal point in our life cycle. With mandatory shutdowns and constant concerns on healthcare, the hospitality industry took a huge hit. Sales effectively stopped and all of our employees went on furlough. At the immediate time of the shut down, we were on a family vacation 2,000 miles away from home. We didn’t know if we would be able to get on a plane and didn’t know the projected longevity of our business as a whole. Our little wine bar was a huge worry of ours. What would be our next step? Should we close completely?
At that moment, we decided to hang out in our hotel room awaiting word for what to do on a global level. Since our background was in technology, we used this time to take every one of our 200+ plus labels and add them to an online inventory. We added descriptions, pricing, and built an online shopping system so that upon our return we could jump right into at home deliveries for wine. We would be the only employees and would travel around town depositing online orders to porches and driveways.
As soon as we heard that we could effectively dine outside, we went to work designing and ordering a beautiful outdoor dining room with chandeliers, retractable walls, and fully spaced tables. We decided to change our food menu to include recommendations to the local restaurants for items that paired perfectly with our wines. We became the focal point for our community to enjoy the take-out from favorite restaurants while dining outside in a classy spacious way. At times there was a wait of up to an hour for a table and many nights we turned away up to 100 people that we just couldn’t seat. WE FOUND A WAY!! Our guests realized that they were safe, they could dine out, and they could enjoy their people once again. We then took the next step to build even more dining pods as our wine bar had the only private parking lot in the area. We had the space where others did not and we capitalized on this.
Our business grew during COVID. Not many can say this, but we owned the word resilience. People were happy for just the few moments they shared with us. We even went so far as to have live music in its own special tent. Food, wine, music and people…. life felt right, safe, and comfortable.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.syndicatewines.com
- Instagram: @syndicatewine
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/syndicatewine
- Linkedin: www.angelabixler.com
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/syndicate-wine-bar-beaverton
Image Credits
Diego G Diaz Photography