Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
It’s all in the oil… food… and wine
Friends, food and fine wine at heart of Bentonville establishment’s business plan
When Laura Gheen and Tom, her husband, opened Ramo d’Olivio almost three years ago, they knew it would be a lot of work. What escaped them at the time was how enjoyable of an adventure it would become. “It’s been fun,” she said. “It’s been a lot of fun. We’ve been spending a lot of time growing our business. We’ve done a lot of organic growth and word of mouth and become a local favorite. We’ve really enjoyed the process.” Now, after several years the once small olive oil shop in Downtown Bentonville has grown into a bustling retail shop, wine bar with garden, event and live music venue and recently, a new deli. The key to their quick success is in the oil, wine and food. “We use our olive oils in all of our recipes, in our spaghetti on Mondays and in all of our salad dressings,” Laura said. Having the extra space that growth has afforded allows the couple to host special events and offer catering and educational culinary classes. “I’ve done salad dressing classes and other cooking classes for groups, which is a lot of fun,” she said. “We are on the bike tour so when they come in and do a tour through the olive oil shop I’m able to introduce them to our deli and the wine bar.” Even though it’s a lot to manage, she noted, they somehow all flow together.
Love to eat and cook
When deciding what kind of business to open the former teacher and her accountant husband thought it was a no-brainer. “We’ve traveled quite a bit and we love to eat and cook on our own,” the California native said. “Because of the culinary experience that’s happening within our town we wanted to open a retail shop. We started with the idea of bringing in olive oils. We had been to Italy and tasted really nice olive oils and really wanted to bring that here for home chefs.”
There must be worse things than researching and tasting quality olive oils, wines and culinary speciality dishes, right? “While doing the research I decided to buy all of our oils straight from the growers in California on the Central Coast near the Casa Robles area,” Laura said. “I’ve gone out there several times and tasted the oils and developed relationships with the farmers. We buy directly from certain farms and small mills on the Central Coast, so all of our oils are small batched and as fresh as we can get. Getting to bring that experience to our small town was a wonderful thing to do. Our farmers’ market is growing, farm-to-table (cooking) is growing around the area. We thought it would really fit in within our community.” The same philosophy was used when selecting their wine list. “We also wanted to introduce that same concept into our wine bar. That’s why we went with small vineyards, Laura noted. “We offer world-wide brands. We do a lot of wine tastings. We have wine makers coming in from all over. In fact we have one on October 19th. We have the wine maker from Raptor Ridge Vineyard in Oregon coming in to do a wine tasting and wine flights. We’ve had wine makers from Napa and from Argentina and Chile. It’s been a lot of fun.”
The joy of teaching
You can take the teacher out of the kitchen, but you can’t take the kitchen out of the teacher. Laura said she loves the educational aspect of introducing area foodies to new tastes, textures and aromas. She enjoys teaching in the kitchen. “I wanted to teach,” she said. “I enjoy teaching people to use it and cook with it… especially the balsamic vinegars. People will taste it and buy it, but they won’t know how to use it. It might just set on the shelf. That’s where I like to use my knowledge and recipes. That’s why we use all of those products in our deli so people can learn to use them and be inspired with everyday cooking.” Interacting with her clientele is what Laura loves. “We love our regulars,” she bragged. “They know us and fall in love with what we do. But, we also love the new person who finds us and says ‘I didn’t even know you were here.’ They are looking for a place where they can come by themselves, set out in the garden with a friend and have a nice glass of wine or have a meeting. We enjoy them all, the regulars and the new customers.” Laura said she hopes word of mouth will continue to grow and she will get the chance to meet many more new friends at “Ramo,” what her loyal customers and friends lovingly call the business. “I think a lot of people don’t know we exist,” she said, bent on changing that. “Once they find us we become their secret hidden spot. We want people to know that we are that casual hangout, a comfortable place that you can come alone, with a friend, with the family or in a group. You can be here by yourself and make new friends here. It just feels very cozy and inviting.”