In the wake of the coronavirus, we’ve asked businesses to share their stories. The following is in the business owner’s own words. Submit your story here.
Submitted By: Sheila (Sassy) Pellizzari, co-owner of Bacco Selections.
How Would You Describe the Business? What Makes it Special?
“We are Sheila (Sassy) and Paolo Pellizzari, owners of Bacco Selections Italian fine wine importers and distributors. We are a very small, family owned company and we import and distribute unique, high quality wines from small farms in Italy. Paolo is from Italy and I lived there for 14 years. We had this dream to move back here from Italy six years ago and bring our favorite wines with us to share with the community. We still have our roots and our home in Tuscany and we visit Italy frequently to discover these wine producers and hand pick the wines.”
How Have Regulations Affected Your Business? How Have You Adapted?
“We only sell to locally owned restaurants and some high-end wine shops. The wine sales from these locally owned restaurants made up 90 percent of our income. With them being closed, we are back to ground zero, where we were six years ago when we established the business. We have a warehouse full of thousands and thousands of bottles of wine yet our clients are unable to move them. ”
How Have Regulations Affected You / Your Employees / Coworkers?
“Our business is running at less than 10 percent of what it used to be. We are definitely reevaluating our business plan to find the best way to evolve during this time. In the meantime, we have been getting great support from local wine shops Triangle Wine and the Village Wine Shop, who have been amazingly incredible at working with us. Please support your local wine shop and remember you can get wine when you get your food takeout!”
Tell us Anything Else We Should Know:
“We are anxious about the future of our business but we are working on ways to evolve. In the meantime, our primary concern is to stay healthy and stop the spread of the virus. We stand with all the businesses suffering right now as we are all together on the same boat while sailing through this rough, unchartered sea.”
Want to share your business story? Submit it here.
