Good Grape Wine Company

May 11 2007

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Unfortunately, this post has very limited interest to those outside of the borders of Interstate 465 in Indianapolis, but I’ll write it anyway.

You see, I’m not a vindictive kind of guy, but I’ve had an axe to grind for some time and in a small way I feel somewhat vindicated.

I’ve alluded in very obtuse terms to a venerable Indianapolis wine shop that I felt was letting down its customers when it built a new wine shop.

You have to understand that when you think of wine shops in Indianapolis you think of Kahn’s.  It’s the only place to buy wine futures and they have a great high-end selection of hard to find wines.

There is a responsibility inherent to being the best and when that trust is violated there are repercussions. 

For example, the Star Wars prequels, to a large degree, have forked its fan base based on missteps with the most recent trilogy. 

That’s how life is when you don’t uphold standards and you can’t at once remain true to your roots while being progressive.

When Jim Arnold, the owner of Kahn’s, was planning a new wine shop just 300 yards from the old cramped, dusty store a legacy remnant of the 80’s, he opted to build an aluminum shed/liquor barn with bad fluorescent lighting and concrete floors.  He could have gone one of two ways—the comfortable wine boutique, future ready, or the Costco model, uncreative but with the perception of value.  I thought then, as I think now, that the Costco model was a horrendous mistake given all of the empirical trend data that exists for where the wine market is going, but that’s the decision he made.

My lingering vitriol was originally ignited by the fact that two years ago, in the midst of he and I communicating around a customer satisfaction issue I had with his pricing techniques, he told me that he would never apologize for making a profit.  Um, okay.  When a customer wonders why a wine is priced $9 dollars higher within the same year for the same vintage and you say that, “You’ll never apologize for making a profit” about all I can say is you have to be a pretty oblivious to what creates a good business.  It’s the customer, it’s not the transaction.  At that point I offered to buy him lunch because I had some ideas I wanted to run by him and he told me quote/unquote that he was “Too busy running his four businesses to take time out for lunch.”  He did extend an olive branch by saying that I should say “Hi” the next time I was in the shop.  That presumed that I would be in the shop again, cool guy. 

One thing I would never do is pull the “I’m too important” card out, especially after you tell a customer that you’d never apologize for price gouging … er … making a profit. 

At that point I decided that if he didn’t have time for lunch, I didn’t have time to spend money at his shop. So, I’ve taken my annual wine spending elsewhere—notably to the Cork & Cracker which knows a thing or two about building an amicable relationship with customers. 

Now, I find out that not only does Jim no longer have four businesses (he now has one liquor barn), but his business partner basically was thinking the same thing I was.

I first got word when Jim sent an email out to his email distribution list on Saturday, May 5th.  The email said in total:

Jim sells Carmel to Joe!
 
After 10 years of a great, growing partnership, Joe and I have called it “Splitsville”.  As my Daddy always told me, there are two reasons you need a partner, you need their money, or you need their expertise.  Well, it seems we are past that point, and we both have different ideas on what to do next.  So we decided “what to do next”…split up as partners.  I am selling Carmel, The Montage, and Kahn’s Katering to Joe.  This is a deal we are certain is best for us, and we really think it will be best for you also.  Effective immediately, the Carmel store is NO LONGER a “Kahn’s” (he hasn’t told me the new name yet) and will not be included in any Kahn’s advertising or buying effective immediately.  It is still on the building, but I am sure Joe will change that soon enough.  Joe and I hope to continue to do Wine Events together at The Montage in the future and to never let business get in the way of our healthy, though all too infrequent, golfing relationship.  I wish nothing but the best for Joe in his endeavors and hope you will all wish him your best.

I thought then that there had to be something more to this, and it turns out there is more to it.

Joe Husar, his partner, has purchased Kahn’s in Carmel, Kahn’s Catering and Montage, their catering venue. The Indianapolis Star reports:

After more than a decade in business together, co-owners Joe Husar and Jim Arnold have decided to split up their holdings in what Husar called an amicable, if long-brewing, breakup driven by a differing vision of what the Kahn’s brand name should mean.

“Hopefully, we’ll continue to be golf buddies,” he said.

Um, yeah.  Let me decode Joe’s comments for you:  He is saying, “On the off chance that I get the chance to golf, I probably won’t be calling Jim, though if I run into him at the clubhouse at Hillcrest we’ll exchange pleasantries.”  And, frankly, I can’t blame Joe.  If Jim’s customer service bedside manner is any indication of what kind of guy he’s like as a business partner, then this was probably brewing for years.

I wish nothing but the best for Joe’s wine shop in Carmel, and in fact I feel like I can now go back to being a customer, but Jim, well, Godspeed to you brother and your aluminum liquor barn.

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