It's hard for me to believe, but we have now been open for TEN years.
It seems like it was just yesterday when I was shipping boxes of wine making equipment and supplies out of my garage. Since then, we have moved 3 times, most recently, a year ago into a 7,000 square foot facility. At the time, I was concerned that it was not large enough and I was correct. Soon, we will be looking for more space for our ever expanding inventory.
My wife and I decided to open the store when we discovered a void in the marketplace. Local Home Brew Stores (LHBS) took off in the 80's and 90's mainly to support the beer brewer. Home wine making took off in the late 90's and products were sold by the LHBS. Beer was still their main focus, so getting assistance for wine making was limited to a handfull of stores. As such, we decided to focus 100% on the wine making side of the industry with no beer brewing products, thus the genesis of the name, "The Wine Maker's Toy Store".
When we located to a more visible location in 2007, beer brewers started stopping in and were disappointed that we had no beer supplies. I knew very little about beer, so I continued to not sell beer brewing products. However, in 2009 a customer that made both wine and beer dropped in and we discussed adding the beer brewing products. I hired him and now beer related sales represents 25% of our total sales!
In 2011, at the request of my commercial winery customers, I traveled to Italy to attend the Simei Wine Exposition. This is the largest exhibition of wine making equipment in the world. It is so large that you really can't see everything in one day. At that show, I teamed up with two main suppliers, Albrigi Techologies for the stainless steel tanks and Enotecnia Pillan/Zambelli for the majoriry of the other items, presses, fillers, filters and crush-pad equipment!
The commerical equipment side of the business is starting to take off. Not only do I have get to travel the state of Texas to meet our local commercial wine makers, but I also get to drink some very nice wines. Texas wine is really improving as evidenced by the number of awards they are winning. Another perk of the commercial equipment is that most of it is made in Italy. I have had to madk several trips back to train on the products and work out the business arrangements.
Where the future will take us, only time will tell, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you that have contributed to our success. Without our customers, we would not have a business, so whether you have spent $5.00 with us or $50,000 with us, we want to let you know that we greatly appreciate your support and we will continue to provide the best customer support in the industry.
To show our appreciation, we are having our Tenth Anniversary Sale with almost everything on sale for 10% off. To take advantage of this offer, click on the following link to obtain the Promotion Code and details of the sale:
