06/09/2026
Many people have asked about our start as Steve's Wine Bar. In our first "history of Steve's" email, we talked a little about how it started with Steve being laid off from his job and how that presented itself as a new path and opportunity.
Taking over another wine bar and having to craft our own name and business plan was something we had to do. Our friend Sara Wolfe, who was a business partner in another business with Steve and Karen, was also stepping into a bookkeeping business. With her and her boss, they were able to set up the business, Steve's Wine Bar, LLC to purchase Vigne. Not to name the bar that, but simply to be official in the purchase of the wine bar.
As we began the process, we started thinking about names for the wine bar. We talked to several friends and even started down the path of hiring a professional marketing group to help design the logo and the DBA for the bar.
Paperwork was filed with the state, TABC, the city and the county. To complete the process, we had to post a notice in the local newspaper to let everyone know there was a new bar opening in town. The challenge, based on our time frame, we needed a DBA right away before we could go through the official process with the newspaper and TABC.
Our friends, Judy and Marshall, jumped in and started giving us their ideas, and Judy did her due diligence in looking at other wine bars out there in the market to make sure we weren't coming up with a name that was already taken. A few days later, we met up and after several names and ideas were tossed about, the consensus was to keep it Steve's Wine Bar. We have several other businesses in Denton with a single name, and it made sense to keep it simple. Who can screw up Steve's Wine Bar? Or so we thought....
Our first piece of mail that we received at the wine bar was an advertisement. It was made out to Barry Oosterwaal, who stepped in to help with our website design, our logo, and many other things. But what was really funny, was that the piece came to Barry at Steve Swinebar. We laughed about that and started thinking about how we can use this to our advantage. We went even as far as to talk with our friends at city hall to see if we can bring in a micro-pig and make it our mascot to hang around the bar. Alas, that was a no-go, but when you visit Steve's, you now know why, if you didn't already, we have so many pigs hanging around the bar.
With the Swinebar theme in mind, prepare to come and visit Steve's in the month of July. We are going to be doing a Swine-Hunt, where people can go around the bar and find as many pigs as they can, then fill out a form with their results. At the end of July, we will go through all the entries, and those with the right number of pigs, will go into a drawing for a Magnum Bottle of wine, which we will draw for on our official anniversary day of August 5th.
So, plan ahead to come to Steve's in July and see how many pigs you can spot around the bar. More details to come soon.
You may have seen our notice about being closed today due to construction happening at the bar. As a small business, it's hard to have days where we do not have any revenue. So, as a special offer, if you shop today online for bottles of wine, ci**rs, or merchandise, when you check out, use JUNE9THDiscount to receive 15% off your order. You can pick up your order tomorrow or later in the week. We truly appreciate your support, and we look forward to seeing you soon!
www.steveswinebar.com
Cheers, from all of us here at Steve's!
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