Specs is a such an interesting business, because it’s a coffee shop, a cocktail bar, and a market all under one roof. How do you keep that all running cleanly?

“I think it's important to state that all of those three are relatively small compared to some big hospitality programs. I definitely get overwhelmed by it sometimes, but I kept reminding myself that with the way we're doing certain things, it’s still smaller and more manageable than most places. We don't have a full kitchen. We're not doing our baked goods…they're from different bakeries, so we're not doing that sort of management.

“We’re open much longer than most restaurants and are basically open all day, every day. But it takes less people to run the whole place. We have some lead people in each department…a couple of lead baristas who help manage the café portion, a lead bartender who helps manage the bar portion. Right now, it's still myself managing the retail, and we’ll eventually get some sort of retail manager to hopefully grow that portion. I think we've just scratched the surface of the retail. We don't do any bottle programs yet, or any sort of clubs or subscriptions or things like that. We'd like to eventually.

“The café opened first, and about eight months later, we opened the store, and then almost two years later, we opened the bar. So it felt a little more manageable to do it that way. I think it made us establish our systems, our POS, and the way we were doing things…it didn't feel like we were opening a full new business every time.

“And it kept the community involved. They were getting more and more excited for the bar reveal. When the store opened, they were like, ‘Oh, cool…an extra thing to come to Specs for.’ And the same staff floats between all of it. So it does theoretically feel like one.”

You started with around 400 cocktail recipes and cut to 100. How do you decide what makes the cut?

“Someone asked me the other day, ‘How long did it take you to make this whole cocktail menu?’ I was thinking to myself, ‘I don't know…14, 15 years, I think!’ My career behind the bar…that's where the whole 400 cocktails came from. They’re just these cocktails that I've collected over the years, from the very basic, simple classics that everyone knows to some more obscure, locally made ones.

“When you're building a place, you always have a vision of the ultimate rendition of it, and then eventually there's the reality that hits…there's the cost, there's the size of the place, there's the staffing, there’s what's realistic physically in the space…and so we just kept whittling it down.

“We also wanted some bartenders to apply! We wanted an opening team to be able to get a grasp. One hundred drinks is already relatively ambitious. But I knew it was possible, and we built the drinks and the menu in a way that our training program allows the team to pick up a lot of drinks quickly. There are many drinks that people don't always know are the same recipe, but with a different ingredient…our sidecar, for example, is a very similar drink to our margarita, but it's with the brandy and lemon juice. The lemon drop is with vodka and lemon juice. But the ratios are the same.

“My goal is to basically have anything people could order at a bar be available, pretty much year round. So even a piña colada, a mojito…these drinks are on the menu. So that was maybe 40, 50 drinks…and then we had another 20 or 30 that people who are a little more ‘in the cocktail world’ would also call for, like a Paper Plane. These are drinks that are more like contemporary classics that have become relatively famous.

“Everyone loves a mojito. But everyone's afraid to order it at a bar, because the bartenders are usually grumpy about it and they’ve got to go find the mint and find the muddler, but we have it right on our menu. It kind of allows that freedom for someone to be like, ‘Oh, you have a piña colada? I love piña coladas.’ And not to feel bashful about ordering it.

“We're sticking to the basics, but we're trying to do them with really great ingredients. We do fresh pineapple juice, fresh citrus juice. There's a lot of places that are still not doing that. And then, grenadine…we're juicing pomegranate to make the grenadine. We're making a Shirley Temple with it…it’s non-alcoholic, but it's fresh citrus juice and fresh pomegranate syrup that we're making ourselves. It's like the most delicious Shirley Temple ever.”

You came from bigger operations, like Barr Hill and Waterworks…but when it came time for your own place, you went smaller and more intimate. Has there been anything that has surprised you about running your own business, or any big lessons that being an owner has taught you?

“I liked going back to a more intimate staff. I liked the idea of serving my community. I live here, four or five minutes away from Specs. I like to know the guests at a more intimate level. It's part of why I wanted to do this…to express myself more directly with who my identity is, I guess.

“I went to high school in Eastern Europe, in the Balkans. My parents were international teachers. My dad's from Belgium. My mom's from Montreal. And I like to think that I'm kind of showcasing a little bit of both of those aspects. This sort of café-bar experience is how I grew up in Europe. During my high school, early college years, I was in Macedonia, and then I was in Greece for a year. Over there, the cafés all kind of become bars in the evening, and sometimes they have DJs…sometimes it even becomes a dance party. And the following morning, they're back open at 7 or 8 in the morning, and right back at it serving coffee.

“I'm living here in a bit of this European fashion, where this is my job, but it's also my life. I might do a 15-hour day, but a lot of it has been chatting with people or checking in or going home to take care of my dog real quick and then coming back.

“It's taken me longer to get to the full bar being open than I thought. I did imagine that the full concept of all three parts would be humming sooner than two years after signing a lease. It was a scary couple of years. There was serious stress and anxiety at the beginning that were definitely hard to deal with, with the finances that were riding on it. I've done big projects at Waterworks, and opening the bar at Barr Hill…but it was not my money, or that of close friends and family who gave me some savings. That's way more stressful in that sense.”

Bonus Question: Is there an often-requested drink that secretly drives bartenders crazy?

“I think the biggest one on our menu is the Ramos Gin Fizz. It's historically one of those drinks you shake forever. It's got cream and egg white, and then you put seltzer water in it, and it kind of grows in the tall glass. You think it's going to be like a milkshake, but it's actually very light and airy like a cloud. It has some orange flower water…it's just a little bit perfume-y. It takes a while, because we shake it with the egg white and the cream, set it aside, let it rest for a number of minutes, and then top it off. We're kind of becoming known for them, because nowhere else has it on the menu, and so people feel okay to order it. It's the most expensive drink on the menu. On purpose. So that people don't order a million of them!

“But I think our prices are very approachable for the cocktail world these days. We're trying to be a fun bar where you can feel okay having two or three cocktails and not feel like you're breaking the bank. As opposed to going out and enjoying one cocktail really slow, because it cost you over twenty bucks.

“Our prices in a way are progressive…I think you can make serious cocktails with fresh juice and good spirits that are not crazy. We have a lot of basic classic cocktails on the menu for 10 bucks. Old fashioneds, daiquiris, gimlets. And we even have some for nine…the Moscow Mule, the Dark and Stormy.

“It's not a stuffy restaurant vibe. It's a bar. And at a bar, I think you should pay a little bit less for your drinks than at a restaurant, because I feel like you're having a couple and you're hanging out. I want the community to come in, and to come in in volume, rather than to be too specific about one luxury drink or something.”