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Meet Rhonda and Kirk Chandler of La Cave Warehouse in Design District

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Rhonda and Kirk Chandler.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Rhonda and Kirk. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
That’s kind of a long story….we met in high school and began dating. We dated throughout college and got married 2 weeks after graduation. Kirks degree is a BBA of Marketing, and Rhonda’s degrees are BA of English and Journalism both graduated from Texas Tech in 1991. Kirk was commissioned in the US Navy upon graduation, and we promptly moved to Coronado, CA for training followed 9 months later by a move to Sasebo, Japan where we lived for 2 years. We returned to the states when Kirk resigned his commission and he began working as a manufacturing manager for a variety of companies in several industries. Rhonda taught ESL in Japan at the Seiwa High School, and privately. Upon return to the US, she began work as an Executive Assistant for a number of years before we started our family. Rhonda transitioned to part time medical office staff to have time to raise our children, Quinn and Kay. In 2007, Rhonda moved back into personal assistant work for several affluent families. Kirk worked as COO for a number of companies in the aeronautics industry prior to a successful sale in 2012 where he took a break. At this point we decided we wanted to do something ourselves. Kirk was done with board meetings, and 80 hour weeks. The children were getting older and Rhonda was ready to return to full time work. We began looking for companies to purchase – and that led to La Cave. La Cave has been in Dallas since 1977, originally as a bistro/wine bar with the eventual transition to a boutique retail wine store and storage facility. We purchased La Cave in March of 2013 as the previous owner retired and moved out of state. Why wine for us? Kirk’s family lived in Europe and specifically France in the 60’s where they began to adore wine. Growing up in a European style home, he was familiar with wine at an early age. Kirk and Rhonda continued their love of wine throughout their travels. The first winery they visited was Llano Estacado during the time in Lubbock in college in the late 80’s. Every trip since then, and there have been a lot, if there is a winery in driving distance, we go visit. We have both had experience running businesses, and simply adore wine. Why not blend the two together while we work for ourselves and have more time together. The whole decision just seem to fit for us, and we love it all.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Ha, no. From the very beginning there were a lot of lessons learned. On the first day after closing on the purchase of La Cave, we got a lease buy out eviction notice from the landlords of our previous location. Needless to say that was a shock. Here we are just stepping in the door and by 11am the same day we get an overnight letter with a check to move. So we were trying to get to know the business and how it ran, meet the clients, meanwhile arrange a move of 13 refrigeration units, and over 100,000 bottles of wine at cellar temperature. It took a little while. Kirk took the lead on the move and coordinated the whole thing, finding space, build out specifications, logistics, movers, just everything. One year later in April of 2014 we moved to our current location with a brand new custom build our space. We love the newer version of La Cave. We have a much better use of space and capacity for storage, a lovely tasting room for events, and a great glass wall looking into the retail cellar. While it was exceptionally frustrating and daunting, it was a great thing for us. Definitely one of those things that you look back on and are glad happened even if it wasn’t a pleasant experience at the time.

La Cave Warehouse – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
La Cave Warehouse is a boutique concierge level retail wine store and storage facility. We have one of the best European wine collections for retail sale in the Southwest. We have been voted by Wine Searcher as 2018 Gold Award for Best French List, Best European List, and Best Overall Collection. We have been voted D Magazines Best Wine Shop 2012, 2015, and 2017. We specialize in French and European wines with extensive offerings of older vintages. Most shops can only carry the most recent releases. European wine in general is made to be better aged. We have new and aged wines for sale. We offer wine tastings several times a month, wine dinners and winemaker events. In addition, we are the only cellar temperature retail shop and storage facility in Texas. Other than the tasting room and office area, the entire 10,000 sq. ft. is kept at 55 degrees and 60-70% humidity with every bottle lying on its side. This allows a perfect environment for each bottle. We have a large collection of older vintage wines all with perfect provenance. Provenance is where you have a direct proven chain of how a wine has been cared for. All of the wines at La Cave have been purchased via importers, or distributors upon release by the winery. We acquire them immediately and place them in the cellar for aging. A lot of people ask if we buy private collections for resale, or from auctions – absolutely not! It is illegal in Texas for a retailer to resell a bottle that has been in private hands. We are required to purchase for sale only wines/liquors that we obtain from importers or distributors. If we have a 1985 bottle, it means that bottle has been at La Cave in our cellar since the day the winemaker released it and shipped it to the US. We are most proud of our collection of wine and our customer service. We really attempt to cater to our clients’ needs either in acquisition of wines or for their storage needs. A lot of times those two things cross over and merge, which is great. We actively acquire wines for our clients we don’t carry in the store. It really is an attempt to help our clients find the wine they want, we do a lot of special orders. We are most known for our extensive vintage collection perfectly stored in our cellar. The combination of all of these, the cellar, the vintage wines, the storage, and the service is what sets us apart from every other wine retailer in Texas. In addition, we have also begun to add small batch unique liquors to our store as well.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success…that’s probably different for each of us. What we enjoy most is sharing wines that are new to our clients. We love to have that discussion with each client, and take the opportunity to show them something new they wouldn’t have tried without us. We do a lot of impromptu education in the cellar with our clients. We love the relationships we have built with what started as clients, and now are a lot of friends. Of course, the easy answer is grow the business, pay the bills, live a great life happily – but if you don’t enjoy what you do and create relationships along the way what have you accomplished? We partner with a lot of great people beyond our clients to do what we do. It has to start with the vintner. These are wonderful folks who just want to make great wine. They work tirelessly in the vineyard all year long to create these wines hoping someone will like and buy them. We appreciate what they do, and enjoy sharing their story with our clients. We also have some great distributors who find us wonderful wines that we are thrilled to offer our clients. That’s success, working with a producer, bringing a wine to market, sharing it with clients – you have helped another business, and provided a product/service the client enjoys. The business also allows us to get more involved in the community of Dallas through supporting other initiatives through donations and financial support like the Dallas Theater Center, the French American Chamber of Commerce and the Jordan Spieth Foundation.

Pricing:

  • We offer wines priced from $10 up to $4500 per bottle.
  • 10% Case discounts are available including mixed cases

Contact Info:


Image Credit:
Rhonda Chandler

Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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