WILLOW PARK WINES & SPIRITS SET TO OPEN EVENTS CENTRE
Space adjoining new liquor store will allow the business to offer tastings, festivals
Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today the Starphoenix talks to Peter Bossert, the senior director of Willow Park Wines & Spirits, which opened a 13,000 square foot store in December 2023 on 8th Street East in Saskatoon.
The liquor outlet is the first for Willow Park in Saskatoon, with two others in Calgary and two in Regina. Willow Park focuses on education and customer service as its top priorities and will also be opening an events centre in March. The centre will adjoin the liquor store and will allow them to offer wine tastings, festivals and other alcohol-related events, similar to what they already do at in Calgary and Regina.
Q When and where did Willow Park first open?
A Willow Park opened in Calgary in 1994. It was single family private ownership until last year when Calgary Co-op bought it. We've scaled up and scaled down over the years. We used to have a bunch of stores and then we sold them off to refocus our efforts and make it more of a destination store. In 2009 we opened our first store in Regina. So we're actually coming up on our 15th anniversary of being in Saskatchewan. Then we finally made the jump into Saskatoon last year.
Q What sets Willow Park apart from other liquor stores?
A We really focus on education and customer service rather than being the liquor store on the corner. We want to be that place you come to for an experience.
Our knowledge and our customer service sets us apart. Our sales people are trusted experts on the floor. They're there to help. We don't want people to be intimidated by products. We want to help grow people's knowledge. The customer service with our trusted experts as well as our events set us apart from anything else that anybody can offer.
As part of our educational side, we try to provide an expanded selection as well. We'll dive a little bit deeper into some of the lesser-known products. We like to have a larger selection to offer our customers.
Q Why open in Saskatoon now?
A We've been exploring the Saskatoon market for a number of years. We feel that there's a need for the kind of services in education and customer service that we're offering. We really want to focus on that store and try to provide the best customer service that we can and make it a destination store where people want to come.
Q What is the purpose of your events centre?
A Our new events centre will allow us to offer educational opportunities as well as tastings with 40 seated guests, or up to 100 festival style guests walking around. We're doing our first event on March 15, which is going to be our World of Willow Festival. In our events centre, people can walk around and taste different wines at different centres. We already have 22 events planned in the first two months, including four festivals. We really want to heighten that experience of being able to taste what you're buying and enjoy it.
We also are going to be offering some wine and cheese pairings and other different events that we find people enjoy. We have Popcorn Pairings and Crave Cupcake Pairings. We're also going to have an Italian Festival, a California Festival and a Spring Sparkler Festival before the end of May. In Willow Park Calgary, we're doing roughly
240 events per year. We really want to make Saskatoon our next Willow Park Calgary. Once we get rolling and we make sure everything's working smoothly we will be offering some WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) training as well.
Q What selection of products do you offer at Willow Park?
A We have about 3,000 products, but that is growing on a daily basis. We have a long history with a lot of the Saskatchewan vendors such as Rebellion Brewing and Lucky Bastard. There is a large beer market in Saskatchewan, and lots of local craft breweries as well as local distilleries.
We have wines and spirits from all over the world. Willow Park is one of the largest Bourdeaux purchasers in Western Canada. We have a very large selection of Bordeaux and we are growing that as well. We are also growing the scotch and whisky collection as fast as we can. We try to have something from every corner of the globe.
Q How knowledgeable are your Willow Park staff ?
A Education is our highest priority. It's been a big focus of ours for 30 years, and we do that with our staff as well. We have staff with multiple different levels of the WSET wine certification programs throughout our organization.
Q You also have a customer loyalty program?
A It's free to sign up for our Cellar Club, which gives you members-only savings on products and events. You earn points with every purchase that are redeemable in the store. We offer a lot of products that are Cellar Club products. We don't limit them just to our Cellar Club members, but they are a really good deal. We also have an exclusive email list where some of our Cellar Club offers will go out to Cellar Club members first before they're released to the public. If there's a limited supply, they'll be the first ones to get the exclusive offer.
Q Do you sell directly to restaurants and bars?
A A large majority of our operation is business to business. We do probably 70 per cent of our business with other businesses. We have warehouses around Western Canada from which we distribute and deliver to bars and restaurants. We have a number of business customers already in Saskatoon.
When it comes to our events we like to work with our partners, too, in the sense that we will be trying to bring in chefs and do food pairings with restaurants as well. We like to do a lot of on-sites where we'll ... do tastings at restaurants as well.