We recently connected with Valerie Duque and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Valerie , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

I am a huge believer and supporter of family owned business. I am truly obsessed with entrepreneurship being instilled among families. Ever since I began my own entrepreneurship, my family and friends have always played huge roles. My daughter has seen me work hard to accomplish my goals. My friends and family have even worked for free alongside me to help me in the very beginnings. I think that although challenging, it is a beautiful journey that I have grown to appreciate the efforts that others put into their own businesses.

When you are supporting these types of business you are contributing to people within your communities. You are helping these families shape their household in allowing them to make a living for themselves. Whether you are purchasing an item, booking a service, or taking a class. Family operated businesses are all built on aiming towards similar goals. Financial freedom and stability, flexibility in work schedules, building jobs for others, and contributing to community are all just a few examples. But at the end of the day, their hard work and dedication all goes towards ensuring their households are taken care of. Whenever I have the opportunity of choosing between locally owned family businesses and major corporations, you can always find me supporting those that are just like me!

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

I am Valerie Duque and my husband is John Nathaniel. We are the owner and operators of Pretty Little Bar Co. I have a degree in Hospitality Management and have been in the industry for a little over 15 years. The Food and Beverage industry has always been an area of passion and creativity for me and it is something that I truly enjoy. I have had great opportunities within the field which had led me to where I am today. My previous experiences as Research and Development Chef as well as Food and Beverage Manager have been inspirations to my entrepreneurial side.
Pretty Little Bar Co, was a dream I had. It was one of my Pinterest boards, and a vision I hoped to one day bring to life. Although I had built businesses on my own before, this one was different. I knew that this business would require man power beyond my capability and that’s where my husband (boyfriend at the time) came into play. I remember, I was at a friends house scrolling through Pinterest and talking about how cool it would be to do this. I came back home talking to John about the mobile bar business idea, and how amazing it would be to convert a vintage camper into a beautiful business. Little did I know, the next day he began searching for vintage campers on Offer Up. He did not mention anything to me, nothing! He searched and searched and one day called me and was like Hey! I am on the way to St. Petersburg, I am buying this 1964 camper and bringing it back down to Miami. He literally caught me completely off guard and I was like OH MY GOD, we are going to do this! Well, this camper was in BAD shape. Original everything! Appliances, bright yellow dirty carpet, bathroom, siding everything. It was awful and my first thoughts were.. what are we getting ourselves into? We quickly came up with design ideas, and got to work. We worked on demolishing and rebuilding the camper into the beautiful bar you see today. It took us 8 months of hard labor after our full time jobs, countless late nights and weekends but we completely converted a beat up vintage camper into the prettiest vintage mobile bar.

Pretty Little Bar Co. offers an elevated bar experience for any type of private event. From our custom built Vintage Camper to our custom built mini bars, we are able to be at any event of any size or at any location. We are here to bring your party to life and give you and your guests the most unique and unforgettable bar service you have ever received, We offer several bar options allowing this to be the most personalized experience for each of our guests. Our goals is to make booking your beverage service the easiest and most fun part of your planning party process. From the moment of inquiry, to the end of your event you will be constant communication with us and will feel confident in your decision of booking us for your special event. Our service allows you to truly enjoy your event without having to worry if your guests have fresh drinks or if they are having a good time. Our professional and friendly staff will take care of you and your guests throughout your party. We handle it all from delivering the bars, setting up, providing bar staff, making the garnishes and specialized mixers for your cocktails, purchasing and delivering ice, picking up and delivering the alcohol, providing all the bar tools and coolers, cleaning and sanitizing everything, providing the cups, cocktail napkins, straws, sodas, water and specialty ingredients and breaking down leaving everything clean at the end of the event. Yep, it is a lot and yes, we do it all. All so you can enjoy your party to the fullest.

What sets us apart is that we are truly family owned and operated. We are the one’s you will see setting up and breaking down your events. We are the ones you will be in contact with through out the process. We are proud of our business and know the importance of being present in order to ensure customer satisfaction. We have built this business with our own hard work and continue to strive to provide the best service to all of our current and future clients, We have built beautiful bars and are confident that our service will continue to shine as they have in all of our past events.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think the best story for this would be when we finally finished the buildout of the Vintage Camper Bar. March 2020, yep the beginning of all the COVID craziness. Think about it. Here we are, a brand new bar business. What do we do? Provide bartending services for weddings, parties, birthdays, baby showers and so forth. All events were people gather and are close and have a great time. Then boom, that’s the total opposite of what is allowed to be done. We had no idea what to do. What bad luck we thought, We had this vision, this dream and now we find ourselves in a global pandemic! It was hard, it got to us a little bit. We even had thoughts about selling the camper in another state to just make a nice quick profit and move on. But we kept our dream alive. We pivoted and started doing photo shoots and drive by baby showers. Although it wasn’t what the business was originally intended for. It’s what the world felt comfortable with and we had to adapt for the time being. I guess you can say everything happens for a reason because as soon as gatherings were allowed again, people were ready to celebrate!

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source of new clients, hands down has to be Instagram. The moment we share new content, inquiries’ quickly start rolling in. Let’s face it, social media platforms are the new commercials. We are constantly on our phones, browsing away, When you come across something different and see something you like you are bound to go into that IG page and explore. We live in Miami, a culture that is so rich and surrounded by celebrations. Our business is a staple for every type of special ocassion.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://prettylittlebarco.com/
• Instagram: @prettylittlebar_co
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prettylittlebarco

Image Credits
@kristinacoronaphotography @stephbarboza.photo