Today we’d like to introduce you to Josh Labrada, Ardielle Sarangelo, and Teddy Attelus.
Josh, Ardielle, Teddy, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Flavor Shakers started off with a conversation that originated from a conversation that my girlfriend (Ardi) and I (Josh) had on our way home from work after bartending at our jobs on a very busy weekend, we’ve been working as bartenders for years and, we had a conversation about making changes to our professional life styles, one that suited us better. The same conversation popped up during a poker night while hanging out with my (Josh) boys Teddy and Tino, our team members that also have been working in the hospitality industry for many years. We have always dreamed of having a bar of our own but let’s be real, opening a brick & mortar anywhere nowadays in this economy is very risky and costs a lot of money. Aside from working for our bars we also work a lot of events from time to time and thought why not do this for ourselves. We did our research about starting our business as a mobile bar. The following weeks to come we all met up and sat to discuss how we could make this idea into a reality. We all assigned ourselves assignments that needed to be completed before a certain date, we didn’t want to waste anymore time on this and needed to give ourselves that urgency. Within 2 months we had established our LLC, and the next thing you know we are on the road from MIami all the way to Tennessee to pick up our very first Tap Trailer. During this trip we discussed many different ideas that we would later incorporate in our business now, we as a team hold together three decades of gathered experience so there was never anything discussed that wasn’t insightful.
Our team have worked at well known cocktail bars in the city of Miami; Now, what really separates us from the thousands of other mobile bar businesses out there is our focus on providing quality craft cocktails yet not forgetting about providing a wonderful guest experience. The Tap Trailer gives us the ease of being able to serve cocktails in an efficient manner that way we can connect to our clients more.
I will admit, the first few months of starting our business was definitely not easy. We still have a lot to learn about what it meant to be young entrepreneurs. Once we started focusing more on our marketing aspects thanks to Ardi for taking charge of the marketing aspect, our business really started getting its momentum. We have gotten nothing but positive results and inquiries from our clients and it makes us genuinely happy to hear them satisfied with our services. Without any restrictions, we are allowed to be our most creative selves and show everyone what we can really do, and to us it’s been a very nice breath of fresh air. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for us, in the future we are hoping to expand our armada and hopefully be able to employ more good, honest and hard working people that deserve the same spot light.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s definitely not as easy as it sounds but it has been very rewarding experience all throughout.
Getting leads was our main challenge in the beginning, and marketing was also another endeavor that we had to overcome because none of us have a marketing background so it was hard to figure out on where to start and how we can put ourselves more out there. We also don’t have enough funds to pay for someone to do our marketing for us yet since we are still a small starting company.
Work and life balance has also been a struggle for us. We can’t necessarily get ourselves to quit our day jobs yet because it’s a consistent pay and we’re using that money to fund for the business plus our own personal bills and we are also using our day jobs as our stepping tool for getting leads through working with brand reps, regulars, and even just meeting new people at our bars. There are times where we have to work at our bars during the day and work an event right after for our business which ends up being a really long day of work, but working for ourselves is also very rewarding and we try our best to make it as fun as possible so it doesn’t feel like work sometimes.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Flavor Shakers is a Mobile Bar business in the city of Miami, we specialize in curating crafty beverages catering to all sorts of different events in the city. Whether it’s a birthday, wedding or just a family get together, we will bring the bar to you.
What separates us from other business out there is our “Craft to Draft” concept. Our Tap Trailer can dispense anything and everything, from cocktails, wines, beers, etc. This concept is very efficient for big events where we have to serve a big volume of people all at the same time and still able to provide great guest service while still being able serve consistent quality beverages at the same time.
Our beverage services are also something that we shine at, with our joint creativity we can bring any and all ideas to life. We always want to cater to our clients to the best of our abilities and what we love to do more than anything is collaborations. We always give consultations to guests who are interested in our services so that we can make your ideal evening a reality.
Another fun activity that we do is also teach master classes to large groups, whether it covers the art of mixology or knowledge on certain spirits, we love to teach our bar culture to others so that they may take appreciation into it as much as we do. One service that we would eventually love to get into is beverage program consulting for bar establishments that would wish to have our creative concoctions as part of their bar culture.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.flavor-shakers.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flavor_shakers?igsh=MXRtcG55ZG52Mmx5OQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
