CoolVines Jersey City: A Community Builder

CoolVines has been part of the Jersey City community since 2014. The Powerhouse District location just opened up in November 2018. I am all for promoting local businesses and was eager to meet Mark Censits, Founder and CEO of CoolVines, to chat about the concept and upcoming projects.

Check out CoolVines’ wine selection here and visit The Butler Cafe.

Mark, you are coming from a business and finance background, so what inspired you to start CoolVines?

Mark Censits: I have been doing consulting work in the business space for 20 some years. It’s an accumulation of things that happened. The urge to have my own business start growing on me and when I decided it was time to do that, I also realized that there were some other criteria that mattered to me. I wanted to do something local and concrete and more of a physical presence versus advisory virtual work. I was hoping to build and create my own community. I didn’t come at this thinking I wanted to be in the wine business but I wanted to do something that instilled passion.

Wine is something that has always been a curiosity, almost to the point of a frustration - trying to understand it better, access it and be someone who can look at a wine list and know what to choose. I had this sense that people that were in this ecosystem of wine were interesting people. They like to travel, music and art, all of those things that I find really invigorating. My initial idea was that I wanted to create something in the wine world, but didn’t know it was going to be on the retail side. I wanted to try to solve a problem that I had; which was that wine was complicated and not very intuitive, and despite all of my attempts to self-study, I still felt ignorant when I walked into a wine shop and tried to make an intelligent choice. I want to help myself and other people solve that problem: Find a place where they can feel less intimidated.

CoolVines Princeton, NJ launched in 2007. What brought you to Jersey City?

Mark Censits: I was living in Princeton at the time and as I was developing the concept:  I knew from the beginning that I wanted to create a multi-store environment. I was trying to build something that has scalability to it. I wanted something that I could create and replicate and possibly grow. Princeton made sense; obviously, I lived there. I needed a town that could provide access to a liquor license that was not being used locally, and that could be purchased. I decided I wanted to do 3 stores. To me that felt like the magic number. It wasn’t too big but big enough where I could see if the model worked in all.

After Princeton, I chose Westfield, NJ for my second location.  Westfield is very similar to Princeton. Similar size and demographic, a proper town center; however, no university, but other than that, they are pretty similar. A lot of people live there but work in NYC. But then I thought for the third one, let’s do something different. Let’s try a more diverse location. Actually, I don’t quite remember what initially made me think of Jersey City, but as I started looking into it, it became very intriguing. In 2006, I decided to bet on a contract for the purchase of a Jersey City liquor license and thankfully, I got it. At that point, my plans for Princeton and Westfield were starting to move forward and I thought to myself: ‘I might be crazy to think I can do 3 stores at once. So I decided to start with one first. I launched Westfield first and then Princeton about a year later and I cancelled that contract with the seller of the license in JC to focus on the first.

Within a couple of months, a man walked into my Westfield store. He was meeting a friend for dinner and had chosen a BYOB. The restaurant told him to get a bottle of wine from the store next door, CoolVines. He looked around and said: “Wow, I like this!” And he went up to the manager and said: “Hi, my name is Paul Silverman. Am building a project in JC and I would love to have a shop like this in the building.” And the manager said: “Funny enough, the owner is always talking about JC. I think he’ll be very interested.” When I heard that, I knew it was meant to be. However, shortly after opening the second store the economy crashed and the next 3 to 4 years were a struggle.

Around 2014, we decided to go ahead and open our little spot on York and Grove. Within 10 months, the Jersey City location was the highest performing store we had, even though the other locations were already 6 years old. The JC store immediately clicked with the local market. Our brand was understood and recognized by this demographic more than the other two locations. We were doing fine in Princeton and Westfield, but I wanted more than fine. I wanted to be successful and thankfully this town just loved what we had to offer. There were people coming in and telling us: “Thank you so much! You are legitimizing our neighborhood.” After all, what do we need to make a neighborhood a good one? You need a park, a bookstore, and of course a wine shop. We felt that we were able to express the model and our brand more fully in JC and we were appreciated for it. Over the course of the next 3 years, I sold Princeton and Westfield and got a deal on the Warren & Morgan Street space. I think there are more opportunities in JC. We’re excited!

The Warren Street location is by far the biggest and more complex thing we’ve ever done. We’ve never opened a store from scratch. This is twice the size of the CoolVines Grove Street store. It has the café so we had to learn about espresso, equipment and all kind of things. This space is regulated as a BYOB. I want this to be a 7am to 10pm café not just a morning coffee shop.  We have started to offer more food choices and the BYOB option allows it be more of a social setting.

Your wine selection is unusual. How do you decide which wine to bring in?

Mark Censits:  Our way of selecting wine is very methodical and repetitious. We do our selection in two different seasons, one around January/February and the other in August/September. We meet with each of our suppliers. First we give them information about how their wines are currently performing in our store. We also tell them where we think we have needs. For instance, we may be a little light in our New World whites or customers may want more half bottles. Natural wines continue to grow as a category and we need to make sure we address such trends accordingly.

Once we have provided that information to our suppliers, then we meet with them one at a time. We give them about an hour or so to present the wines they think might interest us. We independently evaluate each wine. We are not looking for wines that are marketing driven, but wines that are a great value something that our customers will come to appreciate us for. I had somebody say: “You guys have the best selection of wine under $15.” In that $10-$15 range, I think we bring a way higher caliber wine than you are going to get at the grocery store, because we are searching for small wine producers who don’t have the marketing caché. They look for us to help sell their wine. We are their promotional representative if you will. The fact that it’s here means that it’s gone through pretty heavy scrutiny and that we endorse it.

When I visited your store for the first time, your ‘Core Collection’ caught my attention. Can you tell me a little bit more about the thoughts behind it?

Mark Censits:  In this type of a neighborhood, people buy wine every day. They buy wine for that night’s consumption. I am amazed sometimes at how short of a period of time people can spend in the store. They’ll be walking from the Path train on their way home. They come in, get their bottle of wine and sometimes they know exactly what to get. They can be in and out of the store in 3 minutes. We wanted to help with that process. There are days like Saturdays when people come in and we have tasting so they wander around the store, they search in the nooks and crannies and they might stay for 45 minutes.  We are constantly thinking about how we could support both of those buyers.

The analogy that I always think of is the concept of video-rental stores. They were always set up so that new releases were right where you came in the door and I’ll always start there. What’s the new release that may interest me? If I don’t see anything I like then back to the stack I go. When we are tasting wines, we’ll say: “What do you think? Is this a Core Wine?” It should be a wine that has fairly broad appeal that really kills it in terms of performance for the price. If we feel that way, then we’ll put it in Core Collection area because it’ll get so much more exposure. It’s really meant to be a wine that we are excited about. Most of our customers shop that way. They just go to that section, pick out a wine and they’re done.    

How often does the ‘Core Collection’ change?

Mark Censits: I would say during this time of year (January/February), there is more change going on, because this is a time of the year when we are tasting new things.  As we go through a tasting season,   we may end up changing half of the Core Collection. From March through July, before the next tasting season (August/September), we may only have a handful that change, and only because a particular vintage or wine runs out.

How do you direct a customer who comes in and asks for a big brand name?

Mark Censits: If the person has a few minutes to hear our story, it usually comes through pretty clear. The message is ‘Let go of the brand-attachment and let us guide you’. If you like a big oaky Merlot or a big oaky Chardonnay, let me show you what we can deliver in that category. If somebody is really dead-set on it, let’s say a lawyer is giving a gift to a client and he/she wants it to be a big brand, we do have some products that fit that category. If the customer says he/she just loves Dom Perignon, well there are lots of places you can get that. The reality is we are not going to be your best price on Dom Perignon anyway because we’re not going through the volume of these high trophy brands like bit retailers are. If you are looking for the label, we might not be the store for you.

How big is your team collectively?

Mark Censits: The week before Christmas, we were at 30 people between the 2 stores. I also have a small corporate staff, accounting and graphic arts and human resources. Like a lot of retailers, we are seasonal so in January, it trims back to the full time people and a handful of part-time staff so we’re are at about 20.

Do you have any plans on opening new locations?

Mark Censits: We are working on a new location in Newark right now in the building where Whole Foods is on Broad Street. In the Newark location, we were able to secure a liquor license with broader permissions. So we can serve on-premise. It’s a tiny little store so we don’t really have room for seating. We are going to have a tap wall with beer, wine and cider behind the check-out counter. We’ll be able to use the interior atrium of the building. Right now, it is mostly used for Whole Foods customers who come in to get their lunch and dinner. They’ll be able to have wine, beer and cider out there.

I am excited about your Wine Club.  Could anyone join?

Mark Censits: If you feel like you want to be part of a group like that then yes I’ll encourage you to join. You’ll see it is relatively informal and fun. We are going to try to have one conversation rather than a social collection of people drinking wine and just chatting. It’s not relegated to just industry people. You have to be a bit courageous to present your wine but the goal is to make you feel confident in doing it.

We are looking to grow and expand. We are looking to become part of the environment that we go into. The fact that this is the Powerhouse Art District it has shaped how I want this store to be part of that community. We dedicated a wall in the store called ‘The Art Wall’ and artists can apply and have a show here. We’ll run an artist’s piece for 2 months. We are trying to support the local art community. We want Cool Vines to be seen as something that adds to the community at large not just a great place to buy your wine.

Thank you @wineguyMark for taking the time to chat!

Cheers,

Anna

(This story was originally posted in February 2019).