I recently spent a day at Florence Cellars as they opened their tasting room in downtown Woodinville WA. 

Big congratulations to their team!. There was great energy and a strong turnout. It was a fantastic opening day all around.  

Opening day is always revealing. It’s not about whether your POS works in theory. It’s about how everything holds up when the room fills and guests are standing in front of you. 

You start hearing real-world questions: What happens if the terminal drops connection? How do we start a tab?  Why isn’t the tip option showing?  Can we add a library bottle as a SKU right now? 

None of it is catastrophic of course, but even small friction feels bigger in a busy tasting room. 

And honestly, the most important conversations weren’t about the POS at all. They were about hospitality. 

How do we greet guests when seats are full? Who manages flow?  How do we make this feel welcoming when most of the team aren’t career servers, but people who care deeply about the winery? 

That’s where systems matter most. 

The goal isn’t to turn a winery into something corporate. The goal is to set things up well enough that technology fades into the background and the winery’s personality can come forward. 

Opening day isn’t about perfection. It’s about alignment. 

I wrote more about what opening day teaches you on the PromoLab blog if you’re interested. https://www.promolab.com/post/opening-a-winery-tasting-room-here-s-what-you-actually-learn-on-day-one

Cheers!