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Business & Tech

Rendezvous Wine & Brew Tries to Tap Into a Different Market

Their menu for food, wine and beer is purposefully different than other places in town.

Rendezvous Wine & Brew looks like a classy restaurant so it may surprise you that it has wine on tap.

Don’t let that change your mind. It’s not boxed wine. It’s top-notch wine that could cost $10 a class, but because it’s on tap owners Timi Brooks and Wendy Muller can sell it for about half that.

It’s their way of making class affordable.

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The business is one of six that has opened in Enumclaw the past few months.

Brooks and Muller were Realtors before taking on their first business venture.

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“It just wasn’t fun anymore,” Muller said of selling homes.

The next-door neighbors for 20 years did some catering and bartendering to try to figure out what they wanted to do.

“Can’t we be done with all the research?” Muller finally asked.

They decided to open their business locally.

“We didn’t want to go anywhere else,” Brooks said.

They demolished the old building to rebuild.

“We called in all of our favors,” Brooks said of getting all the help.

They liked the wine aspect of what they’d learned so they decided on a bistro that would offer 60-80 different bottles of wine and a variety of beers that other places in town didn’t offer.

“We found our own little niche,” Brooks said.

They all tried to come up with a different menu than other local restaurants. They sell appetizers such as Garlic Bacon Potato Cakes; just a few sandwiches, such as Roast Beef and Peppers; four types of salads, like a Caprese; and only a handful of entrees, including Pepperoni Flatbread. The special Dinner for Two  inclues Cheese Fondu, two entrees and Chocolate Fondu for dessert.

Brooks said they really didn’t know what they were getting into.

“It’s still scary” to have a new business in this economy, Brooks said. “If we knew what we didn’t know we may not have done it.”

Rendezvous, located at 1118 Myrtle Ave., opens at 11 a.m. and closes at about 11 p.m. on weekends, when it often has live music. It’s closed Mondays.

 

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