Meet the Maker: Larry Kurofsky

We sat down with Larry Kurofsky, founder of Purple Café to talk about Purple, the inspiration behind it, and what it offers for the downtown wino.

WINO: The downtown Purple…Inspired, right?

LK: Yeah, you know, it was a big step for us to go downtown. We had a restaurant in Las Vegas that was similar in style, you know, wine bar concept, but then we moved up here and it was the same sort of philosophy that we wanted to use to approach Purple up in this market. And then, it was really a suburban neighborhood restaurant, and then our next step after we opened Kirkland, we thought we’d look at other suburban neighborhoods and maybe a more urban population, and this space became available, our broker found it. We looked at it, got along with the landlord, and it evolved. We thought, let’s try it, let’s see what it’s like in a downtown neighborhood.

Meet the Makers: Poco Wine Room

WINO: You’ve been open on Capitol Hill for a couple of years now, and with evident success. What inspired you to open Poco?

Bart: Temporary insanity!
Peter: [Laughs] There’s nothing like a couple of glasses of wine to make opening your own wine bar sound like a great idea.
Bart: Totally!