10/20/2025
This is the hardest post I've had to write in many years. After almost two decades, I have made the difficult decision to close Toast! Wine and Spirits. Yesterday was our last day in business. (I wish I could have shared with all earlier-but due to confidentiality agreements, this was the first time I could share the news)
It was too hard to pack 19 years in a short statement here, so there is a Toast! story below if you'd like to read more info on how we came to be, and why I have made the decision to close.
To everyone who has been faithful to Toast! over the years, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. For some of us, we've been through a lifetime of emotions and shared some incredible stories that I will cherish forever.
The space will become a new wine shop, and it will take on a new life under a new owner. I think she will do great things for the space and I'm excited to see what she does with it.
What can you say after nearly two decades, except for thanks for the laughs, cries, the dedication and for the memories. Even though it will be something else in the future, I have a feeling you'll still walk in and hear, "Whatcha drinking?" coming from above. Cheers! Thanks for all the memories Sloans Lake!
_____________________________________________________________________Toast! A story for the ages--
19 years ago, I was sitting in a restaurant, across the table from a young man, nearly 30 years old, with a dream. He was a physics major at the time, working as a server and boardroom captain at Morton’s of Chicago in Downtown Denver. We had been married 2 years, 5 months, had purchased our first home years prior and were young. He was ambitious. Earlier in the year he had participated in an entry-level wine class by The Court of Master Sommeliers, led by up-and-coming Master Sommelier, Bobby Stucky. From that moment on, his dream to pursue a career in physics was far in his rear-mirror. He had found his passion.
At that table, he looked across from me. A young woman, with a dream of returning home to California someday to be closer to family, an agreement we had when we were married years before, and he asked me a question that would forever change our lives. “I want to get out of the industry. I want to buy a liquor store. What do you think?” It was a heavy question. Do I say, “let’s do it!” Knowing full well, that meant giving up my dream? Or do I say no, we have a plan, lets stick with it? Looking at his big, frosty blue eyes, big and full of life, how could I say no to his plan? To his dream? I said, “OK. If that’s what you want to do, let’s do it!”
We began our search, looking at only a couple of locations. Back then, not many were available. Then we came across a newspaper ad. Yes, I said newspaper ad. If that doesn’t tell you how long ago this is, I don’t know what does! The ad was simple, “liquor store for sale, contact [this number] for more information. Serious applicants only.” He reached out and we went to see the location. When we walked in, we immediately knew this was the location. It had good bones, but needed what we now affectionately call a glow up. The owners were friendly, who happened to also be the landlords, the walk-in cooler had character and we saw it would take some time, but this was the location we were waiting for.
Three days before Thanksgiving, the young man walked in. Received the keys to what would be the last job of his entire life, and began doing something he had never done before, he became an entrepreneur, working 11 to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. He was naive, but eager, excited to meet the community and offer them what wasn’t the norm…incredible customer service, someone who truly cared for you, and when he asked how you were, he genuinely meant it.
He was handed the keys, walked in and attempted to run the cash register. He failed to get it open and functioning, so he did what was unheard of. He gave product to people who walked in. Introduced himself and said to them, “bring back the money later,” then he proceeded to chat, getting to know them, and asking them truly valuable questions. Within a few months, he had built a steady customer base.
Word spread fast that there was a new store in the neighborhood. Business picked up to where he couldn’t handle the flow of traffic alone, so I left my stable 9-5 Monday through Friday job to join him.
Then we were off…friendships were made; with multiple customers becoming close friends. Some even joined us in celebrating his 30th birthday. We befriended the local metal artist, and later the store became his canvas, metal his paintbrush, and he added the artistic touch that softened the look of what had become our livelihood.
5 years in, multiple friends made, several who joined us over the years as employees as business kept ramping up and it became difficult for the two of us to run it alone. We held epic holiday parties, build deep friendships that would last a lifetime, and we expanded on our knowledge, becoming intermediate and advance sommeliers. Our customers introduced us to the world of beer, and we befriended distillers who would leave lasting impressions on us, thus expanding our passion for whiskey and agave. He even traveled to Jalisco, meeting one of the leaders in the tequila industry, and setting the ground for a friendship there as well.
Then something incredible happened. We found out we were pregnant. Imagine having hundreds of family members, all with questions, excited for your bundle of joy, all with advice, joy, gifts, and love. Our daughter was born in December, and as much as I cringed every time, I heard over two hundred people say, “Ohhhh! A Christmas baby!!” I knew their hearts were in the right place, and it was incredible to feel so much support and love.
After some time at home, she would come to work with me, with guests walking in and saying hi to me, but also to her. I was exhausted. A tired mom, a husband who was constantly working, and not having time away. But it was worth it. We were the epitome of the American dream. We owned our own business, had the house, the child, life was great.
Then business started to slow, we were in direct competition with big corporate grocers. For the first time since we opened we had a huge competitor. The stress started to build, sales started to drop. This space we called ours for so long started to show it may not be able to sustain us forever.
Fast forward 8 years, and the tolls of long hours, declining sales, a history of substance abuse with everything at your fingertips, a world-wide epidemic shutting the world down, and being the source for anything normal in the lives of all who knew us and relied on us took its toll. Stress built, business became impossible to keep up with, and cash flow became an issue with selling more than we could afford to replenish with in such a short time.
This fantastical dream we had, this place we built, the friendships we made over time, weren’t enough. It took its toll, and the man I sat across from at that restaurant couldn’t handle the stress anymore. He ended the pain in the most horrible way for anyone, and my world as I knew it shattered. I was fortunate to have amazing friends who worked with us carry the store through, as I healed and took my time deciding if I wanted to continue his dream or leave and begin to pursue mine. I stayed. I came back and jumped in timidly into the deep end. It wasn’t the same. My person was gone. The dream we once shared was gone. I was surrounded by bottles, a reminder of what took him from me. But I stayed, because it was what I knew, and those who walked in the door everyday supported me, us, for so many years. It was my turn to be strong, carry on, and persist.
I did. Until 2023 when 50% of Colorado decided that my little store, and others like it weren’t enough for them. Now I was in competition with large grocers, cash flow became impossible. I was bailing water from a ship that had a gaping hole that grew to a geyser and I was sinking fast. My heart was broken, by dreams shattered, and I decided it was time to begin the search for someone to take over. It was a difficult decision, but now I had a whole new life. I had met an incredible man, who supported me and helped me through loss, I was tired of living someone else’s dream and it was time for my next chapter. After clearing it with “the boss,” A.K.A my daughter, I decided to post the store for sale.
It took some soul-searching, gut wrenching, exhausting moments in time. I was remarried, and after a bit, I accepted a job that would be the beginning of my next chapter. I was patient and the perfect person came along. She was a mirror of us at around the same age (I’m speculating, but I believe she is approximately the same age) we were when we were eager, hungry for entrepreneurship, and excited to begin the next chapter of her life.
It's hard to say goodbye to almost two decades of your life. To walk away and know that you will never get that time back. But I relish in the memories, the incredible, the good, the bad. I immerse myself in the life-long friendships built. I will look back. I will come back to visit and see what her dream determined that special space to transform into. But as I do, I will most likely always see that man across the table from me 19 years ago looking back at me and I’ll be hopeful that he’d be proud of my decisions and I’ll jump, no so timidly this time, into the deep end once again.
Thank you to all of you, you know who you are, and there are way too many of you to list individually, who morphed a place with four walls into what will always become a piece of my history.
