We had the good fortune of connecting with Vickie Zambrano and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Vickie, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
It was never in the cards for me to start my own business. Early in my career I was the Executive Assistant to the CEO/Owner of a local small business. We had 6 different brands that we managed. I learned SO much in that role on how to run a business, all the good and bad parts of it. After that job, I swore I would never own my own business after getting a deep dive into what the day to day of owning a business was like. I moved on from that job to find something less stressful. After working a few different corporate jobs, I got the crazy idea to open up my own restaurant. With ALOT of encouragement from friends, the restaurant came to fruition. During the start up process, all the memories of stress and ups and downs from my first EA job magically disappeared for me. I had a vision and I wanted to build it. Once I had the business plan in place, it was almost exactly one year from an idea to grand opening. To say it’s been a whirlwind is an understatement!

What should our readers know about your business?
Curean started as a build your own charcuterie concept and wine lounge and quickly turned into a full blown mediterranean tapas restaurant with an excellent craft cocktail menu and wine list. I push my culinary team and beverage team everyday to stay creative, offer things that no other restaurants in town do, stay mediterranean and keep sustainability in mind. I would say getting to where we are today was easy and hard at the same time. I’ve been in this industry for 15 years and I’ve done it all so I had experience with the actual running of the business. The startup and construction was new to me. I knew the direction we needed to go but had a learning curve with how to get there. I learned alot that year. I watched alot of Shark Tank and listened to classical music that year, I thought it would help rewire my brain to the business mindset I needed. I reached out to alot of people in my network and got advice and learned from their mistakes. I say it takes a village and it truly does, without the village I wouldn’t be where I am now. The past 2 years have not been picture perfect, they feel perfect but they haven’t been. But I’ve been able to learn and grow personally and in the business because of all the curve balls. I am proud of what we have accomplished in the 8 months we have been open. I am proud to say that I opened a restaurant as a female at 29 with no help from business partners or investors. I am already proud of where the business will go in the years to come!

 

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oh my, there’s so much to do in Greenville and the surrounding areas. I would start out with a walking tour of downtown. Main street, falls park, unity park and the commons! Dinner would end up at Curean, CAMP, Scoundrel or Jianna! I would plan a day on the swamp rabbit trail and do it from start to finish, with a lot of food and drink stops on the way! I would plan a day trip to Asheville and hit the blue ridge mountains.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Khailing Neoh, Sumbar Owner. Hands down would not have opened a restaurant if it weren’t for her. We meet when I was managing a private club and I hosted a pop up of hers for our members. She was in the start up phase of her restaurant at the time and we were the same age and became friends. I got to watch her build her restaurant from scratch and even helped plan her grand opening. After her grand opening weekend I thought to myself “if Khailing can do this, I can do this”. I sat down with her one morning after she had only been open for 2 weeks and told her I had an idea. She immediately asked me “are you going to open a restaurant?” Followed by “I was in your shoes this time last year and nothing anyone said could have talked me out of it so I’m not going to do that but I will tell you it’s going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.” After that, it was a personal challenge for me to do it and succeed. But if I had not met another young, female opening a restaurant by herself, I do not think I would have a restaurant today.

Website: cureangvl.com

Instagram: @cureangvl

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CureanGVL/ 

Image Credits
@maxdinataledigital

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