Arrivederci

About Us

           Arrivederci Wine & Gifts started in 2000 as a small coffee shop in the lobby of Nassau West Salon. We sold coffee and a small amount of wine with a large selection of gifts. In 2003 we were offered an area ten times the size of the place were in at the time. We didn’t know what we were going to do with all that space, but we had no choice, we had to take it. It took a trip to Italy to really open our eyes in what we really wanted to do. We went over for my brother Rian and my sister-in law Jamie’s wedding . After having many bottles of brunello at the local trattoria in San Gimignano, my heavily inebriated father mutters “Enoteca?”. We thought he said “erotica”, so we got ready to put him to bed. Then he pointed and said with more clarity “Enoteca”, which was on a sign at the tratoria. We asked the waiter what it meant. “Wine Bar” he said.   It all started to make sense. We suddenly knew what we should do with our place. We would create Milwaukie’s first Enoteca

When we came back home we got right to work. Between my dad Steve, my mom Katy, my three friends Brent, Brett, Gary, and my grandpa Bill and myself, we spent 11 months building everything ourselves to make it “authentic and original” (that’s code for we’re cheap.) My dad told me that if we built it ourselves we would take more pride in our work and it would turn out looking nice, he was right. When we had our opening night we kept the brown paper on the windows that was left from building all year, with the neon sign that said “enoteca”. Half of our customers that night were 18 year-old kids with their hat pulled down low, that realized that they were in the wrong place when they walked in. After a few months of being open we started to see the same people a lot more. Which meant we were doing something right, we were starting a family instead of customers (Family? That’s right, I’ll see you all at Christmas. I need a new watch in case you were wondering.) We want to thank all of you for your patronage the last year, and I hope to keep seeing you.

-The Hanneman Family