cocktails
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Desert Door took a wild plant to market. Then it closed.
Three military veterans turned a business-school assignment into Texas sotol, complete with a blue bottle and national ambitions. The hard part was making the business as durable as the desert plant.
Marcus Baney
Marcus Baney is a co-founder of Spec (specapp.com), a restaurant and bar inventory management and recipe costing platform, and a seasoned beverage consultant based in Dayton, Ohio. Drawing on 11 years of hospitality experience - seven years behind the bar at Nashville's most celebrated craft cocktail bars including The Patterson House, Pinewood Social, and LA Jackson, plus four years as a bar manager and beverage director - he bridges the gap between artisan craft and operational profit. His consulting work focuses on designing cocktail programs that hit 85% gross margins while being executable by real teams. Beyond hospitality, he's an avid photographer with over 2,600 images on Flickr, a guitar player, and a golfer.