E211 Madeleine Hayles

This week's guest is Madeline Hales, who joins us for an interview from Toronto Ontario, Canada. Mads is a small yay in order of Happy Coffee and Wine, a cafe and wine bar in Parkdale, Toronto. Mads is also currently in the process of opening a new restaurant with several partners in January 2025 named Zia's Place. In our conversation with Mads, we talk about some of Mads' earlier jobs at Sparkter Interest in Wine, working in smaller venues that allow a focus on personal interaction and customer care, the importance of enjoying wine and food without the pressure of adhering to specific pairings and making wine more accessible to everyone, the evolution of the Ontario Wine industry, Mads' plans about bringing a wine label to market plus a host of other topics.

Make sure you check out Happy Coffee and Wine online at HappyCoffeeAndWine.com or check the show notes for all the links discussed during the interview. Enjoy the show. Okay, back with another episode of the industry podcast. My name is Kit, with me as always, is Dan the Man.

Hey, that's me. How's it going? Good, man. You know, same shit.

Yeah, I hear you. I guess we're fully in the fall now. It's getting kind of cool. October Fests around the corner.

Just a kick of the grind in the bar industry. Yeah, they'll finally change October Fests around to be like four weekends here. Yeah. That makes it a bit more sense.

It's a little bit better because then you don't get totally fucked on the two weekends. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that's all, but it's still not great for business.

Yeah. Yeah. They even actually move the parade up an hour. As in, certainly, an hour later, because I used to start at 8am, which is a little early.

So now it's 9am, so no. It doesn't affect me, so I don't care. Yeah. No, it's a, it'll be another month of slow business, but again, it is better since they spread it out a little bit more.

When it was concentrated on the one week and the book ended weekends, the weekends were really rough. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get through it.

Yeah. And if you're in the kitchen, you want a little area and you are not into festivals and bright lights and shitty polka music and bad beer and plastic cups, then try out a bar. Try out a bar, like a sugar run, downtown Kitchener, at Sugar Run Bar on Instagram to find out what's going on down there. We will have some stuff going on to try and counteract people, the October fest scene if people are not into it.

And same with my other bar, Optown Waterloo, Babylon Sisters, at Babylon Sisters, bar to find out what's going on there. It won't be polka. Oh, I grew up with polka and I like to get some. Oh, I guess we won't see you then.

I should also mention a couple more gigs on the horizon here. I will now be your go to contact for Terroir wines in the Kitchenerwater-Lucainbridge-Strapford region. So you can email me kypp at BabylonSisters.ca to check that out if you're interested in any of the Terroir wine portfolio. Also, Allord is Stilling Company, which you might remember from previous ads on this podcast actually, but I am also will also be representing Allord is Stilling Company in basically Ontario.

So check, you can email me at the same address kypp at BabylonSisters.ca to check out all the spirits. 28 different offerings from Allord is Stilling. Yeah, and all using local source ingredients from right around the Laura Farms. So yeah, check that out.

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Please do. Okay. I don't know if we have anything else to talk about it. We should just get to our guest.

I think that's the best plan. Okay. So Madeline Hales joining us right now from Toronto. Last minute, Phil, which is very nice of her.

Yeah, thanks for doing this. Of course, thanks for having me. Yes. Madeline is the owner of Happy Coffee and Wine.

And I don't know what we like to talk about the new spotter. I mean, basically as of today, official and official. The keys have been handed over. Do you have a liquor license yet?

Because if you don't, then it doesn't count. Oh, yes. That's a good point. We're one of the lucky few.

We have a grandpa there in liquor license in the space. That's beautiful. Yes. A very beautiful day.

Yes. Okay. So the new place is going to be called what? It's called Zia's Place.

Okay. And Zia's is the Italian word for entourage. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. So the idea is kind of a slightly rustic, kind of like warm inviting, casual fine dining, Italian restaurant. Amazing. And so Happy Coffee and Wine is in the park daily.

And where is Zia's going to be? So Zia's is in, I guess what you call a little Portugal. It's on Dundas Street, West between Dufferin Street and Lansdowne. So sort of part of the strip of the West End of Toronto along Dundas Street, West there that is definitely like developing a lot for the restaurant and Barsean for sure.

There's like lots of things popping up there. It's kind of getting some like adjacent spillover from Ausington Avenue, which is obviously, I mean, maybe obviously if you're from Toronto, then like Ausington is kind of like, it's known as like the spot quote unquote. But I would say it's become a little bit, maybe more like a little more clubby, a little more downtown vibes as opposed to Dundas West still has kind of a neighborhood feeling to it. That's what happens, right?

Because like, well, obviously we're from Kitchenwater, which is very close to Toronto. So we go to Toronto fairly often, but not, I don't live there. So it seems like every time I go up, there's like a different new area of Toronto that is the new shop to go. But Ausington has been that area for quite a long time.

Yeah, like that had some lasting power. Definitely, definitely. And it still is. I mean, there's still tons going on on Ausington, for sure.

It's still like a great strip. I would just say that there's, it has like sort of spilled more into a like nightlife. As opposed to, so there's kind of like a downtown like King Street West area that is where like most of the club, like that's like the club district in Toronto. And that's sort of spilled over into Ausington.

There's still like on Ausington, lots of small coffee shops, restaurants, kind of like family-owned spots for sure. But if you go out on Ausington on a Saturday night now, it is a party. Yeah. Like people are getting a little wild and crazy and of course nothing wrong with that at all.

But we're definitely more of a, or what we're going for is definitely more about Loki having like a nice dinner with your family at your Zia's place rather than, you know, partying hard. Yes. So you just got the keys today, which is amazing. It's just great.

Yeah. And so what do you think, do you have a, I mean, it never works out the exact day that you think you're going to get open, but do you have like a target date? We are hoping to open for the second week of January, which is kind of crazy time to open. Obviously it's the slowest time in the restaurant industry, but it's, we just didn't want to pass up on a good space that we really liked just because that's when like we happened to be signing the lease.

I'm sure as you guys know, there's a standard three months victory period in like the commercial restaurant and bar industry. So you basically get three months of free rent where you're given the time to build out the space to how you want it to look, to some renovations, set it up for how you need it to flow and run for whatever business you're putting in there. So yeah, we're just going to try to stay within our three months. So we signed for today.

So hopefully we'll be able to open the second week of Jan. Usually things are kind of slowed down, but yeah, we're really going to push for that. Well, there's a couple of things about that in my mind. I'm having done this a number of times now.

One, one is that it's really sort of out of your hands. Like you said, whatever you sign the lease, it's not like you're going to not open in January and just pay rent and not have any income. Like any income is good, but also I've grown to feel like it's a bit of a myth that there's a bad time to open because that you can make an argument for any month. Like, okay, second week of January, yeah, maybe not the busiest time, but it also gives you this period to work out all the kinks before it starts getting busy, right?

So there's always an argument for whatever time you're going to open and there's really not an argument to not. Oh, exactly. Yeah, you kind of just you should just open when you can open. That's right.

And definitely, I mean, I'm kind of I'm definitely trying to look on any world trying to look on the bright side and say it'll be sort of nice to have a bit of a runway to work out the kinks because opening day of a restaurant is always going to be actually no matter how much you plan opening week opening month. So it'll be kind of nice to have to maybe be a little less slammed. I mean, obviously being very optimistic to say we'll be slammed at all, but certainly I think that will sort of ramp up to busy this just given the season that we're opening in, which is actually quite, we're quite happy with that. Yeah, there's also a period where it's like when you first open your friends and family are going to come for like the first couple of weeks to check it out when they can, right?

So now if you're opening in the middle of January, now you're getting business that you normally probably never get again in January because your friends and family aren't coming back that often. That's just the reality of it. And also, it's like opening at that time of year is like you get that boost right away, but that you wouldn't normally get during a, during a slow period. And then, but then also you're not wasting like a, like there's a period of time where it takes people a while to figure out that you're there.

And so that may as well be the time of January, February, March. Yeah. So true. So true.

Yeah. I feel like, I mean, it's not going to be worse than opening in the middle of the pandemic. So that's right. Yeah.

So how fast is the new spot? Like what's capacity wise? So our capacity is 60 seats. We have like a very old liquor license.

Yeah, we've been kind of like doing some floor plans and preliminary stuff looking at it. I have no idea how many whenever shoved 60 seats into there. So probably looking at more something more like 50, which will feel a little more civilized. I don't know.

But yeah, it'll be around 50 seat restaurant, which is exciting. Yeah. I haven't worked. I mean, I've worked in wine bars, obviously since we opened our wine bar, but also for about five years before that I was in a wine bar space working at midfield on like Donas and Gladstone was actually just to demonstrate from our new space.

So that's kind of nice. A little guess to be neighbors with my old boss very beloved wine bar in the West and for sure. Yeah. So working in like a bigger space that's more than 25, 30 seats will be fine.

I'm definitely excited for something that's for a flow of service that's going to be a little bit different. Obviously that's still that's not a big restaurant by any means, but I guess just working in these sort of smaller spaces because that's sort of been more my focus is less towards like the corporate kind of high turn around dining rooms and more towards small spaces, small staff, where there's a lot of like care and like face to face with customers and regulars. That's what I've enjoyed. Yeah, a little personal interaction.

Exactly. People feel like they're at home. Yeah. So I think it'll still feel like at Zia's at the news, but it will still feel internet and like welcoming, but have a little bit like a little bit of a higher capacity than what I've been working with, which was exciting.

Yeah, I want to talk to you about midfield because that is one of my favorite wine bars in Toronto and obviously much be loved one at this point, but like, and then there for a while and a very tiny little spot. Definitely. But that definitely sort of made an aim for itself in Toronto. So how long have you worked out for?

I was in midfield for just over four years. How long has midfield been there in overall? It feels been there now for 10 years. Right.

So you were in a good chunk of it. Then what did you learn from the experience of working at midfield? Like how a small tiny little place tucked away in a corner neighborhood in Toronto? That's a very new style bar of a restaurant and managed to find such success.

What kind of lessons did you learn from that? Yeah, I mean, I would say, first of all, I'm very grateful to midfield for a number of reasons, but I would say they really midfield an archive, which is a little bit further east, but also on the west, which is apparently the only street in Toronto that I'm in Toronto. That place is also great, by the way. Also amazing.

They really paved the way for wine bars in the city, I would say, because when they opened, I was already working in the industry when midfield opened 10 years ago, and I was a little baby busser at a restaurant, and we would all go all the stuff. And we would all go all the stuff and go together to midfield when it opened and had a few, like there were a few people on the staff at the restaurant. I was working out at the time who previously worked with Giuseppe and Chris, the owners there. So we would go and honestly, done as was at that time was tumbleweeds.

It was so quiet. Wine really wasn't the thing that people were focusing on in the industry on the beverage side. It was really cocktails. And so they were like pretty significant trailblazers.

I would say, I think like Josh at archive and Giuseppe at midfield, they both kind of sat in almost empty bars for like a few years, really grinding it out and doing the Lord's work and waiting for wine to kind of take hold. And it really did. They saw something that was on the rise. And since then, in the last five years, there's been such a boom in the wine market in Ontario.

I think there's been a real expansion of people's taste and what people are looking for, and people have gotten a lot more adventurous. And so then when I started at midfield, I really got to be like kind of right in the thick of that. I was just graduated from some school at George Brown's, and so I got to immediately play around with this really big by the glass list that was not restricted in any way. I got to sort of explore natural wine, traditional styles of wine from all over the world at lots of different price points.

And so I feel like I feel very lucky to have been able to work there at the time that I did for sure. Especially when you're doing your education sort of at the same time, where I guess just done. But like, yeah, because the funny thing about wine education is wine's not cheap, right? So like trying to do your education and learn as much as you can about wine by and buying it all for yourself at your house and tasting different stuff.

It's way nicer to work at a wine bar where you get to try all these different wines and sort of develop your palate simultaneously. Definitely. No, and I started at midfield. I probably had maybe five months left at George Brown at the cops program.

So I did that too. Do that in tandem. It's a massive privilege because most of the people in these programs are trying to sort of like start there for the wine scene, the wine industry. And so they just don't have that access.

Yeah, it definitely like really helps with the learning curve. And it's just was obviously a lot of fun. Yeah. But it's like, I remember saying that we said courses like you're in structure would bring certain wines for your taste, but you're kind of at the mercy of what they bring for you to try.

Whereas when you're working in a restaurant, yeah, when you're working in a restaurant like that is like a corny copie of different unique grapes and wines to different different varietals to try. That's like, well, like, like, you're huge in it. Yeah. And when you're working, like, or rather when you're learning through a program like WSA or cops or whatever, you're limited to what is at the LCBO and the LCBO has plenty of wine, but diversity is not there.

And I don't know if it's terrible. We can just be honest with the LCBO on the show. This is an anti LCBO show. So they have a lot of wine that tastes exactly the same.

Yeah. That's exactly right. Even if it's just so sad. It's like, like, they have like, I love Shabli tried to go and buy Shabli at the LCBO.

Now, you're a little bit better off in Toronto because you have that one big store, which is definitely does better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, like, even our good LCBO outlets that have a decent vintage section, like you go and I try to buy Shabli at the fucking LCBO and it's like four different kinds and they literally all take their all. They're all just the same. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. It's the exact same price range, the exact same flavors. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not a great. It's not a good system. Oh, but you guys, you guys have the recently LCBO. You have the best selection of beautiful German wines.

That's right. That is something that is true. But do we really do. Yeah.

Yeah. But yeah. That's a good. I guess I'm not surprised with the German population.

That's right. That's right. I'm not a good guy. Like I like reasoning, but I got to be in the mood to drink it.

So, it's not like something I'm sipping on on a regular basis when I'm at home. Yeah. No, I feel like I would also rather be sipping, I should leave. Yeah.

Yeah. So, what made when did you discover that you were super into wine and that's what you kind of wanted to do with your life? I was. I worked at a restaurant that is now closed called Hockes Food Liner.

It was on Ronsus Vale in Toronto. And funnily enough, I mean, that was a, this doesn't even stand real, but it was like a high-end notice-motion restaurant. So, it was a fancy food, but they had like a fancy donare, which is like the Halifax Hallofax. I was walking on that.

Yeah. It was an awesome restaurant. And I just happened to work under somebody who was the front passenger in wine buyer there, who sort of like sparks this interest. They brought in a lot of really interesting wines.

And I started really enjoying learning from them. And yeah, then, I mean, essentially I was still in school while I was working at, still doing my undergrad while I was working at Hockes. And then I was taking some time off after school, but I was applying for master's programs. And I just was really enjoying working.

I was working full-time in restaurants at that time for that year. And it was supposed to be temporary, but I was kind of, just, I'm myself being really happy to be like working in a restaurant and talking with people and talking with people who were kind of passionate about food and wine, which I was really happy to be working in a restaurant and talking with people who were kind of passionate about food and wine, which I was working in. And I was passionate about food and wine, which I always loved rather than like sitting alone in a library. And I kind of realized I don't really want to spend the rest of my life sitting alone in a library tiktacking away on a computer.

It just wasn't sort of a stimulating as, I guess, like you're doing the, you do the university thing. You have the sort of expectation that, okay, I guess like there, that's the place that I have to focus on. I have to focus on, but I kind of just decided I would just do this, I would sort of commit to this thing that was bringing me more joy. So I decided, oh, I'll take another year off and I'll do a Sommelier program.

And then at a certain point, you just say, okay, I guess this is what I'm doing since I love it. I love it and I'm good at it. And I don't want to spend another $30,000 going to school. So yeah, that's not where I started.

And then yeah, I decided to sort of focus on that, go to do a song program and I worked at a couple other restaurants in the meantime while I was studying at George Brown. I worked at Aftinolite, which is a very fine dining setting, but also very small. It was a always a set course menu with wine pairings. And that was a really, really educational experience, but was, I felt pretty uncomfortable in that form of an environment.

I think that I'm just, when I'm put in environments like that, even to the say, I sort of think, this is not the most enjoyable way to experience this food in this wine. It's kind of a weird, outdated thing. It's very odd. Yeah, it's not like it's an unpleasant experience and it's like a cool thing to experience, but it's very formal.

You feel like you got to be kind of quiet. And yeah, I think the way you put it is perfect. It's just sort of an odd way to experience a delicious meal and wine bearing in this ultra-formal setting, which is almost like church. Yeah, exactly.

And I think that I mean, I know they give you the bread on the wine in church too, but the... Yeah, that's not gourmet. Yeah, I think it feels, I think restaurants like that are very chef-focused. I don't think that there's anything wrong with that, but I do think that those spaces are, it's interesting that you brought up church because I think those spaces really are designed to be churches where the chef is the God.

And you're going there to worship the chef. And there's nothing wrong, the chefs are doing amazing things, but ultimately it is food, it's dinner, and it's supposed to just be something that is filling and it's supposed to make you feel good. And it's delicious flavors. Yeah, there's being, it's not like an aesthetic, like religious experience in that way.

It's much more of a familial experience, in my opinion. And it's supposed to be like a lively event with a social event. That's what an amazing thing could be, right? Where the whole fine dining thing feels very buttoned down and formal.

You got to be worried about how you're behaving and what you're saying and how loud you're being. One thing I noticed, and obviously I think the influence came from Europe where this was happening all the time, but there was for a long time in North America, there was the prevalence of this fine dining restaurant. And then suddenly you started noticing and always think, like, probably starting the US and it trickles down to us and then Toronto trickles down to even us. But it's like, you started seeing more and more of these casual fine casual, not even casual fine dining, just casual wine bars.

Like they started popping up and exploding everywhere. And I remember the first time I went to one, probably went to a event in Toronto or Montreal and like was blown away by like, whoa, you could have like be at a place and drink like really cool and even really expensive if you choose to wine and have like a delicious meal, but it's just laid back. The people serving you were laid back. It's a casual environment, but they also have knowledge.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that I was not good at working in a very fine dining establishment, just because I think, well, I have a problem with authority, but that's going to be a therapist. That's going to be a therapist. This is not that show.

You can't talk to that right now. Okay. But yeah, I think I especially was drawn to trying to remove some of the exclusionary kind of like, like, artifice surrounding wine and fine food and making everything more accessible. And I think that that was something that really started catching on kind of around the time that I was thinking of leaving midfield and it was becoming something that was feeling like more of an option.

And I think a lot of that was because of a lot of the work that midfield and archive had done for the public, but also lots of other establishments in the city as well, this sort of project to make wine feel more accessible and not just something that is for that is like so intellectual and only for the most refined, esteemed palette because it really isn't. Ultimately, I feel like it's kind of ridiculous that we try to, that anyone ever tried to intellectualize wine because what it does in the end is just make you drunk. We're trying to deny that because a little bit ridiculous. So we might as well just try to enjoy it at every level.

You know, like I still will drink box wine, whatever, if the time is right and we'll drink fine burgundy as well if the time is right and there's like a space for everything and a place for everything. And yeah, it was kind of an exciting opportunity. I think when we opened Tappy to be part of that movement to try to sort of popularize wine in this really accessible space. Yeah, and it's funny to say that to like all the over intellectualization of wine as well.

And it's funny because like if you really want to nerd out about wine, it's one of the coolest things to nerd out about. And if you really get into it and want to learn about it, but it's also okay to just like to drink wine. And that's it. Like how do you feel about the whole like there's an obvious science behind wine pairings with food, but do you feel like it's become a little over rot in a way that like you should just be able to drink whatever you like to drink and eat whatever you like to eat and not cause like wine and food tastes good together and they don't have to pair specifically for you to enjoy that experience.

Yeah, I think even like working in when I was working in fine dining establishments, I got really over like rolling my eyes and people wanting to drink this with that and that with this. And yeah, I think ultimately food and wine is about enjoying yourself and it's about pleasure. And so if you are in the we should drink whatever you're in the mood for and you should eat whatever you're in the mood for. And if you want to indulge in something like the perfect pairing, that's an amazing thing to do.

If you don't, you're also more than welcome to just enjoy yourself. And yeah, I think there's one thing there's one pairing that I still am like this is an absolute no no and no one should ever do this is when people drink full body red wine with a oyster. Is that a sin? Oh, yeah, that's gross.

But that's the only that's the only one other than that. Do you want and just like enjoy yourself and if you want a pairing and you want to ask what's the best what's the best way for me to enjoy this meal go for it and like songs are so happy to. Right, we love it. We love it.

But we're also just so happy for you to be enjoying yourself. And there is no doubt that like there are certain pairings that will enhance your experience. That's beyond the argument. I just feel like we it's at this point where if we can all agree that everyone has a different palette then why would we not also accept the fact that maybe the way they experienced two different like a food and wine might be different than what they want.

The way that you do. Right. Totally. And I think that that's something fun as well that is allowing us to play around with food and wine and also why making an Ontario because I think Ontario has been a bit of a conservative market when it comes to wine.

And we haven't been as willing to maybe play around with things like a wine pairing and say, Oh, you always drink a full body with rose chicken but like why don't we try something different. There's some like there's a bit of resistance there that's been sort of opening up, I would say over the past maybe like five, 10 years and I think a lot of that comes from where it's like in tandem and they're influencing each other is the like Ontario wine making industry. Pushing towards making things that aren't as traditional aren't as expected. A lot of winakers are like trying to sort of explore what it is that like Ontario can offer as well.

And I think that that's been something that's really interesting to kind of watch. And I mean, now I'm like, I'm just gonna segue into plugging the fact that I make wine now. We were just gonna go there anyway. So it was perfect timing.

So yeah, like that's the other thing that you're doing is you're also making wine now. So talk to us about that and how that started and yeah, and we'll just continue the way we're going. Yeah. So well, the last three years I worked to harvest a couple of different wineries.

I mean, just because it's so much fun. It's literally like adult summer camp, basically, but also because I wanted to kind of learn more about the wine making side of things. So I worked a harvest at two nature kinder, which is a natural winery in Southern Germany in Franken and that was an amazing experience. And then I've worked two harvests as well with trailer state winery in consumer county.

And it's been really interesting to be able to kind of do an Ontario winery as well as a European natural winery to sort of compare those two things. And yeah, that just was something that I wanted to do to learn more about the winery side of things. But I just loved it and I decided, why don't I give it a try. Maybe for Hardy because I don't have that much experience.

I only have three of it three harvests under my belt. But yeah, now I am working out of a sort of cooperative space in Niagara. This is my first harvest on my own. And yeah, the Niagara custom crush pad is the name of a space and they call it.

It's kind of funny. They call it like a virtual winery space, but everyone is very much there. It's not it's not virtual in the slightest, but essentially a bunch of different labels with their own winery space, make their wines out of this shared space we share equipment and release all of our own labels. But it's essentially a cooperative space, which is a super cool idea.

We get the guys from all over. I have a couple of friends who are working out of the same crush pad out of Niagara custom crush and we're sharing a bunch of grapes. They've like hooked me up with a lot of people, which is really lovely, particularly when it comes to hybrid varietals because we're both really interested in my friends. They're their winery label.

They're wine label is called bonsang and they're doing a great job of working with hybrid varietals and kind of exploring what we can do with those because we have there's lots of hybrid varietals planted in Ontario. So obviously really well here because that's what they're sort of designed to do, but they're just not as they're still sort of considered a lower quality type of grape. So myself and bonsang were really interested in working a lot more with hybrid varietals and seeing sort of like what they have to offer and what they can do. So we're getting a lot of those grapes from like here on like here on and like eerie areas and then the rest of the fruit for the videst for our varietals is from Niagara.

Crazy. It's almost all 100% like a cadience. It is. Yeah.

And so when you say your friends labels called bonsang, what is yours called? Okay. Well, I don't have a name for my wine label. Yeah, we're just that's still working progress.

The hardest thing to do is name a thing. It is. It is. It's the hardest thing.

It's the hardest thing. Every fucking time you think you've got it, you're just changing your mind and just saying yourself in the. You wake up the next morning and you say that's the worst idea I've ever had. And I found off and I ended going back to the first idea at the end anyway, but.

So really, I know always that way. Yeah. So for now, we're calling it happy wine, which is cute enough. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. It will be a skin contact kind of both of them will be blends, but it'll be a skin contact orange wine and a light red. The light red might be a blend of white and red varietals.

It will be majority red varietals, but sort of a lighter bodied, easy drinking style. And yeah, I plan on to release them in the spring of 2025. That's super exciting. Like I can't even imagine.

I mean, just opening your own businesses and everything that goes in that, not knowing if that's going to work. And like you don't even know if the concept is going to work till the doors open, then you still don't really even know for like a year. If it works. Right.

But for wine, even more so. I mean, obviously you're someone. Yeah. So you have some wine knowledge.

You're going to know whether something tastes good or not. But even then, you must be, there must be a certain level of second guessing that goes in when you try your own juice to be like, okay, like, because you're pretty supposed to like it. For sure. Definitely.

No, this is a real Hail Mary year. I've never done so many stupid things at once in my life. It all works out. You're living dangerously.

Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, that's just entrepreneurship. It's an high risk business. And I just think, I think, especially to do these two projects at once is maybe a little bit foolhardy.

But after, yeah, I think just after the, the slog that was the pandemic really feeling like even these last two years since sort of things have opened up more, we're still just having so much trouble shaking it off. Everyone is. And so I just wanted to do, I just really wanted to like do something a little bit crazy. I think I'm just really trying to shake it off.

And yeah, I think we just happened to sort of find this restaurant space that we really wanted. We really wanted to get into that space. We were really drawn to it. But I didn't want to keep putting off making wine because I wanted to do that as well.

And so I said, let's just go for it. And hopefully it doesn't crash and burn. Well, you know, especially if you're in the entrepreneurial game where you're like, you're like, your thing is working for yourself and starting your own businesses, then like the one thing the pandemic taught us is that having multiple avenues for that time for success is the way to go. Because yeah, if you put all your eggs in one basket, it's that's that's, I'm likely a way riskier position than having multiple eggs in multiple baskets.

Well, we're learning. Yeah, because I think can go wrong at any point and it will. So. Definitely will.

Yeah. Yeah, that's something that we've learned since owning our own business. And for some reason you still just want to keep doing it. Yeah, I think once you start, it's kind of hard to get out of it.

There's the people who are drawn to what we do are not going back. It's like, it's very, you're not going to wake up tomorrow and be like, you know what? Maybe I'll just get an office job. Yeah.

That's way that's so boring. Yeah. And you'd rather just live on the edge and stress about money for your entire life. Yeah.

Make my mother cry daily, but. Why you were going to do that with your life. Yeah. Well, already with your into the sister's authority, that was going to happen no matter what.

So. Nice to my mom. Now maybe. Yeah.

I can't say for 16 year old me. Yeah. I remember that girl was. Yeah.

Who can even remember that person? It's a different life. Well, thanks so much for coming on. This is super interesting.

You're a fascinating person. I'm very happy for everything you're doing and which you all the success in the new restaurant and the wine and with the wine bar still going. That's amazing. Like you're going to be busy as fuck and that's the way we like it.

Right. Yeah, exactly. This is great timing for me. Thank you guys so much because yeah, I get to plug a couple new projects and yeah, it was a pleasure talking to you guys for sure.

Yeah. Well, congratulations on everything and especially on key day that I know that's a big deal. So. Oh, yeah.

All right. Before you go there, well, we're going to be fun. We'll be fun. You're on line for your restaurant surprise.

Yes. So our wine bar and it's also a cafe. Wine bar and cafe is called Happy Coffee and Wine and you can find us at Happy Coffee and Wine on Instagram and then at www.happycoffeeandwine.com. And our new restaurant endeavor that is called Zia's Place Zia's Place and you can find us at Zia's Place on Instagram and we don't have a website yet.

We're too new. But if you are looking for us, you will definitely be able to find links and info at Happy's Instagram. So you can always check there. And then also to mention my the chef and my business partner at Zia's Place at the new spot is Jess Myrano and she is the amazing and talented chef and owner at Pasta forever, which is a Italian catering spot and grosser in Toronto and you can find her at the end of the day.

And you can find her at Pasta forever to on Instagram and pastifreverto.com. And you can also check there for updates or if you wanted to see what kind of cuisine we will be featuring. Amazing. Well, again, congratulations on everything and thanks for taking the time because I'm sure you have many more important things you could be doing right now.

No, it's nice to take a minute and chill honestly. This is a great con. Well, pleasure meeting you and that's a luck with everything. We'll be checking out all of your spots when we come to Toronto next and looking forward to the wine.

Yeah, amazing. Very excited to see you guys there. Thanks very much. Thank you.

Take care guys.