A place to meet and socialize. Glass or more of rare, natural wine and Georgian tapas in a casual setup.
Why we do what we do?
• We aim to support small local wine producers and help them save rare Georgian grapes
• We want to share our passion about Georgian wines
• Contribute to the development of an entrepreneurial culture in Georgia
• Create new standards of being a responsible employer
We are a couple in our forties with a constant question in our mind, what is that we really like to do in our life and are we doing it? Coming from the development finance area, we are both inspired by doing things with social impact and we enjoy doing it in a responsible way. Answering the question what and how to do is a process, but one thing is clear, we want to contribute to progress of our country. As we think it largely depends on development of the entrepreneurship and this is something we thought we could do. We decided to start a business and have an impact in the area we would pick and beyond.
All has started from a small boutique hotel No12. Being Georgians, travelling a lot and meeting many people we would always try to promote our country, encourage them to come and explore it. However we realized that our tourism industry was at rather early stage of development and infrastructure rather basic. We wanted to contribute to filling this gap and setting new standards in a small, boutique hotel field.
Three years later in March 2015 we opened wine bar g.Vino. We always liked wine and tapas bars in Europe with their casual setup, delicious local food, diverse local natural wine offer and happy staff. We thought our city deserves having something like that; especially that Georgia has 8000 years old wine making technology which is part of UNESCO world heritage and is wealthy with rare, natural wines. At g.Vino we aim to support small local wine producers and help them save some rare Georgian grapes.
Last but not least, we do it as we enjoy working with people be it our team member, guest or other counterparty. We do it as we enjoy thinking that we may have a positive impact on their lives.
How we do what we do?
• We do our business in a responsible, transparent way with a passion and we surround ourselves with the people alike.
While deciding on staffing we chose hard way to go. In both projects we employ people who has never worked in the hospitality business, for most of them it is even first job in their lives. Like all our decisions, this was based both on a social and a business motivation. As a socially responsible business people, we want to give opportunity to young, inexperienced, but enthusiastic people to study and grow. Most of our staff are students and we know that our business might be a temporary job for the majority, but we are happy to create for them perfect opportunity to gain first working experience in an atmosphere of freedom, creativity, openness, and equip them with the right values which will help them to pursue their personal and professional goals in life. We believe this will have a multiplier effect for the country as our graduates will bring our values to their new work places and share and inspire the people around them.
Ladies working at the kitchen were housewives previously, who always made good food at home but never had a chance to work and use their skills to earn their income. We give them opportunity to make this their profession. We are also flexible to offer home office working opportunity to some of our lady team members to find right balance between work and family.
From business stand point, we want our staff to share our values which is easier to achieve if the person is not loaded with negative experience from previous job. We think that the only way to have happy guests is to surround them with happy staff. Thus our priority is to create good working atmosphere within the company. Hiring inexperienced staff has its downsides as it takes time to teach and get fully on board, but we think this is the only right way to go.
We encourage our staff to be self managed. Each of our team member has right to find its own way in doing its job and in cooperating with others. They have responsibilities but also freedom to exercise their creativity for better performance. We are always there to give a hand or advice if they need or ask for it and we are always open to learn from them. We believe this helps to develop as a professional and creates best working atmosphere.
We constantly seek from our suppliers the highest quality products and services at the best value. At our wine bar we offer e.g. rare Georgian artisan cheeses that are made at remote villages at small quantities. It is not always easy to have reliable supply of those rare, high quality products, but constant demand from us and business owners will support growth of local production. We believe our guests will appreciate authenticity and high quality of the products we offer.
And what actually is that we do?
• We offer Experience
In both projects our product is experience. It is a memorable experience that we want to create for our employees, guests and other counterparts.
The wine we serve is not just good grape put together with ancient technology by a winemaker. It’s an excitement of the person who might be a professional painter, a doctor or an engineer, but who makes the wine with love and care. It’s our team member who is happy to tell a story about the wine and its producer. We think the food we serve is not just good quality of ingredients or professional cook; it’s the passion it is prepared and served with. Stay at our hotel is not just a comfortable room or convenient location, it’s the decoration that we created with love together with local artisans and designers, it’s the hospitality of our staff that no one can teach and is just part of the passion.
We are happy to see already many guests who like what we do and how we do. We believe there are many more around that will discover us.
We are convinced dedication to these pursuits will ensure financial success and growth opportunities for our team members and business.
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