Circa 2018 during a snow storm when we needed to get to our office in Portland to reset a server. Traffic was stopped. Roads were closed. We pushed forward with snow shoes and public transit to get a server rebooted. We found a way, no matter what.

Our Purpose

Resilience Wines produces a series of custom-crush wines, in partnership with local, artisan winemakers. Inspired by our own personal travails, and with a 2026 goal of introducing our wines to a larger market outside of our business, we initially looked at creating the brand, Resilience Wines.

2023 was a pivotal year for our business, and transformational for us individually, as we brought to conclusion a series of insurmountable obstacles that had challenged us to our core. From recent events, the purpose of Resilience Wines has taken on an entirely new meaning.

A portion of proceeds from every Resilience Wines bottle sold goes directly to local charities in every community. We believe in giving back and paying it forward to those in need more than ourselves

The power to withstand has long been a defining element of who we are. Through Resilience Wines, we stand in support of our community.

We are stronger together!

A transformational moment in time

November 11, 2025: Advocacy in Motion

We have been deeply disturbed by rising tensions, and many things we have been seeing and hearing from members of our community.

Since the creation of Syndicate, we have worked to create a safe place for all, where guests can leave their worries at the door. Now more than ever, we are doubling down on this.

On our sponsorship wall, there is a plank from Angela’s mother that reads, “Did you use your kind words today?”. There is also a dedication piece in our dining room honoring David’s grandparents, who started an English school in Shanghai, China in the 1920’s, where his father was born. The family crest comes from the Chinese character, “An”, which means “tranquility”. It is especially appropriate in this current social climate.

On November 11, 2025, we hosted a special evening at Syndicate with our friend, Mona Das, an award-winning documentarian, past Senator for the State of Washington, and fierce advocate for immigrant and women’s voices. Mona walks the talk every single day. Her story and platform is not only timely, but inspirational as many voices are being silenced.

We held a special viewing of her documentary “Bad Ass Women Doing Kick Ass Shit”, chronicling the work of eight strong women as they stood up to a hierarchy of old power.

The event raised more than $800 for a nonprofit close to our hearts: Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC). The night was inspiring for all, from the many stories shared by attendees who are worried about their personal rights and safety, but also their feelings of renewed hope from sharing in such a beautiful moment of community.

It was on this night we realized a unique opportunity to help our immigrant community, to stand up in defense of the rights of those who have no voice or power to defend themselves, and to use our position and brand as a force for positive change.

This was another moment Resilience Wines found its purpose.

sustaining & fighting for our community

Advocacy when the Community is in Need

There are times to listen and there are times to speak. Through the years we have found ourselves on either side, either listening or speaking up for our community.  We pride ourselves in listening to what the community is saying, especially our business owning neighbors.  Our neighbors are our family, our family by choice.

Over time we have watched local government say they are for small business but act just the opposite in their adoption of fees or complicated policies. We read everything published by the City of Beaverton City Council, especially items that directly impact the area around us called, “Restaurant Row”.

Since our area is a high profile area, City Council and our Beaverton Urban Renewal Agency always has projects going on that deeply impact us. If an issue makes it more complicated to operate our businesses, we will stand up and create a logical and impactful piece that can show the City of Beaverton a different approach.

In 2024, City Council was arguing to increase outdoor dining fees from $100 a year to $895-$1500 for anyone that had a patio in the City of Beaverton boundary. We dug deep into this policy and found that there were exceptions to their policy for all small business but eight in our Restaurant Row; a policy written into City Code that would only impact 8 restaurants, all the rest getting exclusions in a town of almost 100,000 residents.

We decided to talk amongst ourselves, 8 independently owned restaurants. We talked about what we wanted to do next, our main points, and our compromises or “asks” of the City of Beaverton City Council. Three different businesses showed up to provide testimony, three others sent in testimony. Our biggest question was “what substantiates this much of an increase in outdoor dining?”, a project that kept Beaverton alive during the pandemic.  We also asked, “why would we want to pay this, when every year the City passes new rules and we have to rebuild our outdoor dining?”

In the end, the City of Beaverton agreed to keep the annual fee at $100 and further re-write code so that it doesn’t just apply to 8 small or micro restaurants. Sometimes action is necessary to make changes.

Copywrite April 15, 2025

People over Profit: The children

A Safe Santa, a Safe Community

As more and more things were changing around us, we started realizing that children of our community we losing precious memories. Everything was so negative and chaotic.

Again, we pushed ourselves to create magic when the magic of the holidays was disappearing.  Santa was no longer in the shopping malls. Kids were going to school at home. Everything seemed so ominous.

As parents, we didn’t feel right about this so again we put our heads together to create a walk-through Santa Booth, where kids could sit on a bench 6 feet from Santa and still have a special experience.  We dedicated space in our outdoor dining room as a Winter Wonderland.  Our close friend posed as Santa and families lined up for our Safe Santa Experience, week after week.

Most restaurants during this time could not do what we did.  They would never have dedicated outdoor dining room space to something philanthropic. Every table and chair equated to revenue. We couldn’t think beyond the children of our community and what they were missing, so we had to do something.

Santa got creative with all the limitations and fun was brought back to the neighborhood. We even added a mailbox for kids to drop off letters for Santa, safetly and securely. Kids came from all over with creative costumes, masks, and family & friends. We didn’t realize that our creative spark would generate so much enthusiasm.  Time slots filled up so fast that we had to add weekends, more and more….

A family reached out, wanting to participate but their mom was immuno-compromised.  We understood.  My father died of cancer about a decade before this and our Santa lost his mom to cancer.  As a team, we decided to take Santa on the road. Our Santa took the opportunity to go to this family house and have a special moment through a window.  Everyone was safe.  Mom/Dad, kids, the whole family. They were able to have special memories in a more creative space.

This time will always bring us special memories. It’s times like these that we remember that we had a choice. We had a choice to lean into earning more money, or adapting to a community need. We knew we needed to be resilient.  The money would come later.

Circa December 2021

Photo Credit: Michelle Bauer Photography

One Shovel at at time

when Winter Tried to Break Us

If an international pandemic, didn’t break us, the weather of 2021 should have.  In February of 2021, Oregon received the worst winter storm we have had in decades. All the efforts to create outdoor dining was at serious risk as the weather delivered feet of snow followed by inches of ice.  Dining was only allowed outside and we had reservations coming in for our busiest day of the year: Valentine’s Day.

David and I spent hours trying to dig our property out from ice, and then snow. Snow was everywhere and locked in with ice.  We had over 50 people expected for Valentine’s Day so the outside heaters and firepits had to work.  We decided to rally support by posting on FaceBook that we needed help.  Our neighbor and a long-time Club Member showed up to help us break ice, and dig out every service area of snow.

Every dining area was crumbling against the weight of the snow.  All the tents were made of thin plastic canvas. First we had to carefully break the ice by heating the underneath sides.  We would then watch for the melt and with the long side of a push broom, gently crack all the sheets from the underneath sides.  Once the ice was broken, we sholved and sholved for hours on the parking lot, sidewalks and surrounding areas.

Then came time to save the cabanas.  This dining area was made with greenhouse walls, PVC pipe, and extension wires.  With a few shakes, the ice broke and the walls straightened from their crunkled forms.

We only had heat in the Barrel Room and not in the cabanas so we had to call reservations that specifically wanted the cabanas.  This area (though fixed) was too cold for diners to dine.  In the end, people still came out. They came out to support, love, and encourage what we built. Rain, snow, hail, sun, or ice… the community was there for us, inspiring us to do more.

In the ice and snow, we had one of our most successful events and prevailed when others would have closed.  All we had to do was breathe, chip ice sheet at a time, and think about creating the safest place possible for those that wanted to weather the storm at Syndicate Wine Bar.

go big or go home. jump together or not at all

All we have is outdoor dining

We didn’t write many things into our business plans that became required during the pandemic.  The biggest struggle was adjusting to only allowing diners for outdoor seating.  No one was allowed to enjoy a meal indoors.  At times we were limited to 10% of our indoor capacity (or 3 people) and other times we were allowed up to 50% (or 15 people.  We knew that we wouldn’t be able to pay our operational costs with this few customers and wine delivery.  We had to come up with a creative plan once again.

We decided to dig into the funds the community thankfully donated to create more seating outside, that was safe and within the bounds of health and safety codes.  We knew it needed to be classy to appeal to the wine-loving audience. Through our connections in the Willamette Valley wine industry, we found a local outdoor tent producer that met the commercial needs that we were looking for: retractable walls, venting, see-through ceiling, and classy. Little by little we created a dining room in our parking lot with tables spaced 6 feet apart of more.  We added fire pits, decorations, and draping. The customers responded.

Since we didn’t have a kitchen at the time, as it was under construction, we decided to allow outside food from all the neighboring restaurants.  We even changed our menu to provide three different food pairings from our neighbors that would pair well with each of our wines.  In a time when indoor dining was limited, we found a way for our whole community to win.  We had the space and ability to create an outdoor dining room and they had the kitchens to serve food. Space was limited in our area for sidewalk seating so the City of Beaverton allowed those with private parking lots to create something unique.  

Many nights we were packed with a wait time for a table getting up to an hour. The neighboring restaurants started hiring food runners to and from our place so that food was delivered hot. Additionally we added one more tent for musicians and scheduled two for residencies on Friday and Saturday nights, rain or shine.  The public saw that they could eat out and enjoy dining out without being scared.  We took the fear out of things and once again showed our resiliency in hard times.

Summer 2020 

“Need something, ask. the worst they can say is no.”

A Community Wine Bar built by the Community

My father (passed in 2010) always taught me that when you need something just ask.  The worst thing somebody can say is “No”.  You aren’t off any worse than you were before you asked. In 2020, we found ourselves really struggling financially.  We knew we had something great. We knew the community was showing up and dining.  The numbers just weren’t matching.

We figured out that we didn’t qualify for the PPP funds that the government was issuing for small businesses. We were just too new to qualify for the metrics necessary. We just weren’t open long enough in 2019 to show a loss in 2020. Again, we sat back and created a plan… a sponsorship wall.  A community member could buy a plaque for the back wall in honor of someone or for themselves and have this as a permanent fixture on our interior walls.

People came from everywhere. They wanted us to stay open.  Businesses, families, widows… you name it. People were buying plaques for all different reasons. Funds were coming in and we had a community behind us.  When banks and government grants couldn’t, the community answered back.

Every plaque, every reason… created a new why for us.  We burned every message on a cedar plank and posted them on the back wall.  At times, when we get low and struggle, we just go back and read the wall and all the special messages through the years, the special moments that we can never forget.

A community wine bar built by the community, for the community, and inspired by the community.

Our community wanted us to stay and they answered our question back with a resounding “Please Stay. Let Us Help.”

Looking back (now in 2026), the hardest part is looking through this wall to see many of our community that have now passed away.  Five years of memories, happy, sad, funny, and now sad… we are a community that has come together to support in all ways and through all emotions.

Circa 2020 to current…

This wasn’t in our business plan

An International pandemic

Before you start a business, you write an extensive business plan.  This business plan is used in business financing and is looked at extensively by commercial lenders to gage your credit worthiness. When we started our business in early 2019, we met with different banks and potential lenders. Many times we were told that our business model would not succeed or that we were too young in business for lenders to take a chance on us.

Eventually we worked with Business Oregon on construction loans and started Syndicate Wine Bar. Little did we know what was coming in 6 months.  Our business plan was very complete. We opened in July 2019 to a line of fans anxious to finally have a wine bar in Beaverton.  Our tables were immediately filled. We found out fast that the community was more than willing to support an independently owned wine bar.

By Valentine’s Day, we learned that our business model was a huge success.  David and I individually served over 75 people on our largest night of the first year.  That was February 2020. After a year of running Syndicate full tilt, construction, promotion, creation, and execution, we decided to take a small break for 3 days of sunshine in San Diego, CA.  That was March 2020, when the world changed.

March 18th, 2020, we started learning what an international pandemic was through the television from our hotel room in San Diego. Our small little family of three sat back and took a breath. What do we do next?  How do we proceed?  We didn’t plan for this. From that point on, we pushed our creativity to create an online sales platform for wine delivery service in and around Beaverton, OR. We contemplated driving home as airlines were also trying to adjust.

We decided to go all-in on a wine delivery service (run by just the two of us) and then started designing a dining room that was outside only, and appropriately spaced.  We added a tent for live musicians and added fire pits for warmth. People came in jackets, fluffy coats, and blankets, all with masks for safety. All tables were spaced for safety.  Government subsidies started opening up for those businesses older than ourselves and we found out that the only way to stay open was to use our personal savings and try something.

Creativity carried us and once again, we saw lines and requests increasing. Some nights we would turn away 75-80 people as wait times were over an hour.   

Our resilience and ability to push through an obstacle saved us and saved our brand.

Circa March 2020