“I felt like I wanted more than numbers and sitting at a desk,” Andre Lopez recalls of his three years at Charles Schwab in San Francisco. “I enjoyed my time there, but it didn’t fulfill what I wanted to do
– my mind was elsewhere.” The owner of The People’s Wine Shop on King Street went through several years of switching jobs, searching for that one inspiration to shape his career. Today, he is connecting with a passion that finally makes him happy: the many varieties and personalities of wine.
Lopez was born in Guam and moved to Hawaii at the age of three. He grew up in Pearl City and later acquired a degree from UH in Finance and Business. Venturing off to the “Wall Street of the West” in 1998, he began working for Charles Schwab. There he met his girlfriend, Susan Flynn, who now helps him run his shop. But, even after returning home to Hawaii in 2002, it would take several plunges into the local business of banks, restaurants, and sales before returning to the seed of an idea that was planted during his Bay area days.
Given his convenient location while working at Charles Schwab, Lopez was bound to experience the best of California’s wine. “Wine was kind of a natural extension of the food scene there,” says Lopez. “We always made a point to drink wine with our meals and we would spontaneously drive to Napa and Sonoma, just because it was beautiful and if there were wine tastings, we’d just walk in.” It was one of those tasting trips that seemed to seal the deal for Lopez and girlfriend Flynn. When visiting a winery in Napa Valley, they came across a particular 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon and bought a bottle to take home with them. On a night when steak was on the menu, they opened the bottle and were starstruck by the bliss of a perfect blend, which Lopez describes as “the best thing ever.” At that moment, he was convinced that wine was worth some hardcore research.
“I bought books, I talked to people. At that point I didn’t know what was wrong or right. I just started keeping track on a spreadsheet of the things I drank, and made notes. I was sort of on an impossible mission to drink everything!” While some might be intimidated by the multitude and assortment of wine, Lopez was not. “The more there is to not understand, the more exciting and fun it is to try and understand it,” he reasons.
This mentality has made him a successful go-between of winemakers and consumers. “A lot of people put wine up as a beverage that only people with money, or a certain background have had. That’s kind of an old-school way of looking at things. But not everyone can be geeky like me,” he laughs, referring to the time he spent researching wine.
On owning a business, Lopez remarks, “You’ve got to stay positive. You really have some bad days sometimes. It’s very scary having your own business. Before you get into it, you understand there are a lot of risks, but you never fully understand it until you’re in it. You have to look at those bad things, accept that they happened and move on.
“Whether it’s locating a $5,000 bottle for someone’s collection or pointing a customer toward a nice $10 bottle for tonight’s dinner, Andre Lopez and The People’s Wine Shop are there to provide. Lopez is happy where he is right now, but wants to focus on making his Web site a better source on wine for people to refer to. “There are always new wineries, new vintages. It’s one of those things you can never conquer, and I like that because I’m always learning.”
Andre Lopez
Owner
The People’s Wine Shop
1136 South King Street
thepeopleswineshop.com
peopleswineshop.honolulu@gmail.com
808.593.7887
