After a long and successful career in corporate America, it took three wake up calls for Theresa to make good on her dream and start her own business, Good Grapes, a wine and craft beer boutique.
Tell us a little about your background…
I grew up on Chicago’s south side, where I attended Catholic school. I’m the youngest of five and the daughter of parents who taught me hard work, life priorities, and what it means to have integrity. My parents were a team; disagreements on child rearing were discussed behind closed doors and decisions were presented as a united front. Chore assignments were based on age, not gender. My dad worked two full-time jobs until I was in 5th grade while my mom carried the majority of child-rearing and housekeeping responsibilities. When my dad moved to working one job, my mom took a full time job and my dad worked nights so that one of them was always at home.
My parents on their 50th wedding anniversary
My dad was the most honest person I’ve known. I learned from him that there aren’t many hard decisions if honesty and integrity are important. My dad was also my biggest cheerleader and really liked having a daughter who played sports. While I’m only 5’ 8” now, I sprouted early and was 5’ 7” with a medium build by 5th grade. In 7th grade, the grammar school football coach offered me a position on the team. My Dad was all for it. Thankfully, my Mom nixed that idea. Instead, I played volleyball all the way through college (Bradley University), and was even named All-American while in high school.
While attending Bradley University on a volleyball scholarship, I majored in Computer Science with a minor in Business Management. Freshman year was tough. I was one of three freshmen on the team and all three of us were starters who took positions from senior teammates—we didn’t always feel welcome. However, this experience bonded the three of us and we’re still friends today.
Freshman year was also hard as I had an active social high school life that was not immediately replaced at Bradley. Because volleyball season was a fall sport, I missed out on meeting people beyond my teammates. When my parents were visiting for a game, I told my mom that I didn’t want be at Bradley anymore since I wasn’t making friends. She told me to finish freshman year and we would discuss it again. It was sage advice; after the season, I had time to meet others and graduated from Bradley with lifelong friends.
Bradley is also where I experienced female inequality for the first time. Basketball was king at Bradley and our women’s volleyball team had to work around the men’s basketball team practice times. I wasn’t raised in a home that put males first and I went to an all girls’ high school so this was a new experience for me
I returned to Chicago and took my first job out of college as a computer programmer. I then moved on to business analyst, project manager, program manager, and finally technology and strategic planner. I really enjoyed executive program management and strategic planning because it touched on every aspect of the business and was a great hands-on experience in budget creation and management.
When did you start to think about making a change?
In 2000, after being in corporate America for 15 years, I started to think about a change. While I didn’t know what it would be, I always knew that I wanted to own a business—even as a kid, I pretended that I owned a bike repair service. As it turned out, it would take over a decade for me to make my dream a reality.
Scuba Diving in Australia
I thought I’d be a wine importer so that I could combine my love of travel with my own import business; I purchased the URL goodgrapes.com. I knew from the first flight I took in my 20s that I loved traveling. Initially, I took domestic ski trips but soon was skiing in Austria traveling internationally. I’ve been to Austria, Germany, France, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, England, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rico and Canada.
My interest in wine started a bit later, on a trip to New Zealand at age 36. Prior to that trip, I didn’t like wine, but that changed in New Zealand after sipping wines at several vineyards with unbelievable views. Not counting the wines in my suitcase or the two cases of wine that I shipped back to Chicago, I carried 12 bottles on board the returning flights. I literally clinked as I walked down the aisle to my seat. I couldn’t do that today!
I started attending wine tastings and learned as much as possible from the distributors who were pouring the wines. While wine tastings are plentiful and extremely popular today, at that time, attendance was very low and the distributors were happy to have someone to talk to about their products and knowledge. I then took a class on importing. After the class, I spoke to the instructor about my desire to open a wine importing business. He advised me against this idea with the “knowledge” that liquor in the Chicago market was run almost like a cartel and I’d never be able to succeed. I made the mistake of taking this advice at face value and stopped all efforts towards opening my own business.
Time and life passed. In 2006, I was hit by a car while driving my scooter and bounced off the hood of the offending car and then on to the pavement. Two identical women their mid-70s with accents were soon on each of my sides and talking to me. As I was looking up at them, I was confident that I was seeing double and had a brain injury. I also couldn’t straighten my left leg. The ambulance arrived, put me on a flat board with my bent left leg, attached a neck brace, and taped my head to the flat board before heading off to the emergency room. Obviously, I lived and was able to move on—with a leg cast, stiches, broken ribs, and lots of physical therapy. I subsequently learned that the two women who were at my side after the collision were identical twin sisters from Ohio who had lived together all their lives and continued to dress and style their hair alike as well as complete each other’s sentences! It was funny in hindsight.
The following year, I went to Brazil and engaged in a reckless outdoor activity, rock surfing: In an undeveloped part of Brazil a few hours outside of Rio, you walked up into the forest and crossed the rocks horizontally at the top. Once on the “right side” of the rocks, you sat down and “rode” down the jagged rocks with half an inch of water flowing and moving you. Once you reached the bottom of the slope, you plunged quickly and deeply into a small hole of dark water surrounded by rocks and jagged edges. You then swam and kicked in the dark water to come back to the surface as quickly as possible for air and hoped you didn’t hit a rock on the way up.
As the guide was leading us up the tree-dense mountain, we passed a billboard that stated, in both Portuguese and English, that what we were about to do was against the law and had resulted in deaths. Still, we marched on. Each person went through the activity alone while the rest of the group cheered the person on. During the activity, I was incorrectly turned backwards while descending. The cheering stopped and there was a collective gasp by the group. I was confident that I was going to die from a head injury in a foreign country, surrounded by strangers. While I’d always been adventurous, I was old enough to recognize that what I did was reckless and dangerous.
Two years later, in early 2008, I became very ill with MRSA, which was described by a doctor as a staph infection on steroid. While my primary care physician and I knew something was wrong and I was seeing a lot of specialists who all thought I head early signs of their disease, my illness wasn’t diagnosed until I visited the ER after waking up one morning with most of my body, including my mouth and throat, covered with lesions. Thankfully, I’m now fully recovered, with only occasional flare-ups that my doctors monitors to ensure the MRSA does not resurface.
After being released from the hospital, I was on disability. I’ve never been a big fan of TV and there’s only so much reading I could do. While I slept a lot, I had plenty of “me time” and “life analysis time.” Every one reaches a point in life when they come to terms with their mortality, and for me, it was during this time. I couldn’t stop thinking that this illness was my third warning. It was during this time that I decided to move forward with opening my own business based on the motto of “if not now, when?” Life is short and I didn’t want to look back at a bunch of should have’s and could have’s.
What is your next act?
I am the owner of Good Grapes, a wine and craft beer boutique. Our primary products are service and experience. My niche is small vineyards that produce high quality and low volume wines at reasonable prices. There are always eight wines available for complimentary tastings (and bubbles on Saturdays). These tastings help us understand the customer’s palette (e.g., what does “oaky” mean to them, what did or didn’t they like about the wine they tasted). It doesn’t matter if it’s a $10 or $50 bottle of wine; no one wants to get home and not like what they bought.
We offer a cellar-stocking program. With the purchase of five or more cases, the customer receives a custom cellar stocking based on their parameters (e.g., number of reds, types of whites) at 15% off. I create a detailed booklet for them to keep that provides a description and price of each wine. The wines are selected from all wines available in Illinois and not limited to the store portfolio.
We also carry craft beers. While it’s harder to differentiate ourselves here—the selection is smaller and craft beers have become so “in” that many stores now carry them—our focus is a high quality, comprehensive portfolio. This makes Good Grapes a “one stop shop” for beer and wine.
We recently opened in a bigger, 1200-square-foot location in Winnetka, Illinois. This larger space allows us to hold in-store events that provide a foundation for community and new friendships. I love owning a business with fun products that people want to buy rather than products like toothpaste, which they need to buy. People are in a good mood when they buy wine!
The part I love most about owning a business is the complexity of the big picture that contains many small pieces. It’s like a large jigsaw puzzle: All of the pieces are needed to complete the picture. There’s also a strong sense of community amongst small business owners. They truly want to help each other and understand that when one neighboring small business succeeds, it’s best for all.
First Winnetka customer (and former Glencoe customer)
How did you get your business from concept to reality?
As soon as I was able after recovering from MRSA, I incorporated Good Grapes and started looking for a small retail space, with the idea that my primary focus would be an online wine store. The retail space search was based on the incorrect advice from my then lawyer that I needed a storefront to sell wine online. I actually just needed a physical location to accept wine delivery.
I knew I needed a retail space in an area that I would feel safe late at night by myself. This was on top of the challeng