A Bottle of White, A Bottle of Red (and more) at
Cellar 54
BY MARY MICHAELS | PHOTOS BY JULIE PRAIRIE PHOTOGRAPHY
I
f you know Billy Joel, you know those words from his song Scenes at an Italian Restaurant. But, there is much, much more than a bottle of red and a bottle of white at Cellar 54 Wines. If you would have told Jenna Snyder ten years ago that she would be the owner of a wine bar shop, she probably wouldn’t have believed you. You see, at that time, she was working in a bank and, admittedly, didn’t really know anything about wine.
Enter Ray Hoffmann
Open Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Dawley Farm Village 720 S. Highline Place (605) 274-7626 cellar54wines@gmail.com Facebook and Instagram @cellar54wines
Hoffmann was the owner of Luciano’s, an Italian restaurant that started in Sioux City and then added a downtown Sioux Falls location. He became a customer of Snyder’s at the bank, and the two struck up a friendship. “Then he told me he needed a manager at the restaurant and that I should come work for him,” Snyder recalls. So, she left the bank and joined Hoffmann. From time to time, they would talk about what it would be like to just have a wine shop without the restaurant. But at the time, it was just talk. After four years, Snyder left Luciano’s for another opportunity. Eventually, Hoffmann did decide to close the restaurant and focus just on the wine business. He found a storefront in a strip mall in the Dawley Farm development and opened Luciano’s Wine Cellar. Snyder returned to work with Hoffmann again, and it wasn’t long before he was talking about retiring...and talking to Snyder about taking over the business. “It was kind of crazy,” says Snyder. “I didn’t know anything about wine before working with Ray, and I certainly hadn’t imagined myself buying the business.” However, that’s exactly what she did, and on April 1, she became the owner of Cellar 54 Wines. “Ray wanted to keep the Luciano’s name, which made sense,” she says, “and by then I was
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