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The definition of intimacy is when an
artist or someone on the stage can look
into the eyes of every person in the room.
Once you can’t have eye contact, you
can’t have intimacy.”
But while the concerts are central to
the overall City Winery experience, the
business focus is on the wine list and
Mediterranean menu.
“We don’t make money at all on
ticket sales,” says Dorf, explaining that
80 percent of the box-office take goes to
the artists. “Our focus is on making our
profits from food and beverage, just like
any restaurant.”
Much of that comes from the wines
produced in-house. City Winery has
contracts with vineyards in California,
Oregon, Washington, New York and
Argentina; 60 percent of the wine
produced at the four locations goes into
an eco-friendly, on-tap system before
it’s served, which lowers packaging
costs for higher margins.
“By making wine in our facilities,
we’re not just selling it and offering a
good wine list,” Dorf says. “Customers
can smell the fermentation and see
the tanks, which gives an authentic
statement to what we do.”
The company also offers a wine
club and barrel membership, in which
individuals or companies have the
opportunity to join in during the winemaking
process, from the selection of
grapes to crushing, aging, blending,
bottling and labeling.
That was part of Dorf’s plan from
the beginning: “My goal was and
remains to move wine, to show that
you could make it in an authentic
manner in the middle of a city and to
offer a luxury concert experience.”
—Lambeth Hochwald
LONG-DISTANCE LEADERSHIP
Feast for the
senses: Live jazz
caps an evening
at City Winery’s
New York club.
Dorf projects gross revenue to exceed
$40 million in 2015.
Staying true to his rock-club roots,
Dorf made music a major draw at the
venues, with performances by iconic
rock, country and bluegrass artists
such as Elvis Costello, Sinead O’Connor,
Steve Earle and Tim O’Brien. Tickets are
priced from $35 for bar stools to $125 for
seats up front. Each City Winery venue
has a capacity of about 300.
“That number has become magical for
us,” Dorf says. “I use the words ‘intimate
concert experience’ to define our events.
Every year since founding
City Winery, Michael Dorf has
brought 15 people from each
of the company’s U.S. locations,
including managers and
up-and-coming staffers, to
what he calls “base camps.”
(The most recent was in
Puerto Rico.)
“These should never be
called ‘retreats,’” Dorf says.
“A retreat is just the opposite
of what you want to be
doing—the idea is to go
forward, and a base camp is a
great spot where you’re close
to your goal but you still have
a ways to go.” Here, Dorf explains
his rules for fostering a
sense of togetherness among
far-flung colleagues. —L.H.
1Connect with your
managers. “As a CEO,
you can’t be everywhere at
once,” Dorf says. “And if it
wasn’t for a bunch of our
managers, there’s no way we
could have gotten to where
we are today. These events
give us time to really think
through what we do, how
we do it and how we can
improve, as well as focusing
on our best practices in terms
of our styles of management
and how to create some scale
but not get too ‘McDonald’s’
about what we’re doing.”
2Help your managers
think like owners. “This
is one of the biggest challenges
for businesses, and a
week away can help managers
think like owners, to feel
like every bottle of wine, every
customer is really important.”
3Focus on specific
goals. “During our first
Base Camp, we distilled
our mission statement and
talked about office politics.
At the top of a hill, I had
hidden a whiteboard and
some flash cards to get the
conversation going.”
4Look at the business
through a new lens.
“When Steve Jobs died, I had
everyone think about us as an
Apple product and focused
on how Jobs would have
approached serving wine and
putting on a show. This year
I had a rock ’n’ roll photographer
as our guest, and
together we looked at City
Winery through the lens of
a photographer. That helped
us talk about how we capture
the most focused experience
for our customers in the
short time frame we have to
indulge their senses.”
Tapped in:
Michael Dorf of
City Winery.
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