Arley, Co-Owner of Enlightenment Wines, Brooklyn
By Nirmala Nataraj
Shift Change tells the stories of ordinary people on the frontlines during a transformational period in American life. The goal of this project is to raise funds for Supply Drop Brooklyn, a charitable organization that partners with local restaurants to deliver meals to healthcare workers at affected hospitals. Your help can make a critical difference. Please visit Supply Drop and learn how you can make a contribution. For more information about this project, check out our About page.
Arley is the co-owner of the small-batch mead company Enlightenment Wines, whose tasting room, Honey’s, is located in Brooklyn. This is his story.
What is your profession?
I am the co-owner of Enlightenment Wines, a small-batch mead company. Honey’s is our tasting room/cocktail bar/restaurant, and it’s located in Brooklyn. Independent from that, I have my own business, Arley Marks Drinks, through which I do cocktail consulting and a lot of high-end fashion and art world events.
When did you decide to enter this line of work?
I’ve always worked in food service, but I went to art school and studied sculpture. I also had a business with a friend who designed Honey’s. Together, we built a cart that we pulled behind a bicycle and served vegetarian sushi. And then, after Hurricane Katrina, I went to volunteer with one of the first groups to go into the Ninth Ward, which influenced my desire to be in hospitality. I also grew up on a farm in the country, and I feel like those experiences of having to make something work quickly, as well as think abstractly about trying new things, is ingrained in me.
How has your life changed since the coronavirus struck?
It’s been a drastic change. We had a head start on a lot of this stuff because we realized pretty quickly that Honey’s wasn’t going to be able to stay open. We furloughed our staff right away so they could get on unemployment as soon as possible. We went from operating a full-service bar and restaurant to being shuttered and not really knowing what would come next.
I was sort of in shock for a few days, as there was so much information swirling around. My feeling is that this will mean three or four months of being closed and not operating as we normally do. We’ve had to transform the way we do business quickly. The restaurant is now entirely delivery only. We made a very simple Instagram-formatted menu with a few options, including the mead we make, natural wines, beer, and some cocktails that are batched and pre-bottled and ready to go. We chose not to do a GoFundMe, but we’re collecting gratuities on all our orders to go directly to furloughed staff.
We also have cases of gloves that we collected from our restaurant suppliers to be donated to the hospital. We started working with David [Schönstein, and his fledgling organization Supply Drop] to feed healthcare workers. We have been receiving produce donations from Natoora, Local Roots, Smallhold, and Ark Foods. So it’s been a big 180 for me. I’m personally thankful that there is something I can do to help others.
How has this changed your view of your profession or your larger community?
I don’t know if this is permanent, but people’s engagement with each other has really blossomed online, since it’s the only form of contact that is safe right now. I’m seeing people offer online tutorials and things like that, which is pretty amazing, as it means you’re able to connect with a large group of people instantaneously. Before this, I wouldn’t have given it much thought. Sure, we interacted with Instagram and Facebook and all that stuff; it was a pretty limited side note of our business, and now it’s basically the entirety of our business.
When I post something on Instagram, like an updated menu, I get noticeably more attention. So we’ve been reaching out to people who follow us on social media and want to support us, and it’s an interesting shift. The pandemic has required [people in the hospitality industry] to think quickly and lightly on our feet, to pivot and change and try new things. We wouldn’t have been able to do that as a brick-and-mortar establishment. The virtual world lets us do one thing one day and something different another day, so we have this potential to reach a different audience. I’ve seen this potential to think outside the box and reach new groups.
Of course, there’s the reality that the only reason things are working right now is we’re a one-person operation rather than a 15-person operation, which is hard.
What is the most difficult and frustrating part of this for you?
As a small restaurant business, there are options available to us like the disaster loan program, but dealing with the bank hasn’t been easy. We always expected that would be the case. While the government wants to make these loans available, banks don’t, and the amount of details they’re asking for and the requirements they’re putting forth are quite frustrating. They have no real incentive to make any of this easy. With the emergency disaster loan, a business should be able to get $10,000 in their bank account within three days, but as of now, there is no word about when that might be coming through.
What type of emotional support unit is around you? Family? Friends?
Unfortunately, my girlfriend isn’t here with me. She’s in Maryland, but at least we have Skype. My parents are together with my sister and her fiancé. I have a lot of friends, and I’d actually say that I have more contact with them than I would if there wasn’t a pandemic. It’s all virtual, so it’s easy to stay connected that way.
I’m also trying to stay well hydrated! And living in New York, it’s generally hard to prepare meals, so people end up eating out a lot, but I’ve been in this routine of getting up, making coffee, cooking breakfast and lunch to bring with me to work, and then coming home to make dinner and go to bed early. In a way, as a New Yorker, you don’t usually get a chance to do things like cook your meals and go to bed early, since there’s so much to do during the day. So this time is offering me a unique opportunity. I know that healthcare workers don’t have that kind of opportunity, so I’m really glad to help them however I can.
If you could be granted one wish right now, what would it be?
For everyone to get through this safely with their lives intact.
What are you listening to?
Aside from a lot of talk radio, I’ve been listening to Bill Withers, whose music feels very appropriate to this moment.
