The Kawartha Small Business Podcast · The Kawartha Small Business Podcast

184: Louis Karkabasis

·1 hr 11 min·4 clips

Louis says the service business changed for him after COVID, staffing shortages, and his father’s health shifted his choices.

Brian and Matt open from Thrive Podcast Studio at Thrive Coworking Community in downtown Lindsay, Ontario. Louis is introduced as someone rooted in Lindsay but shaped by a wider path. He says he came here when he was two or three, lived on Victoria Street, then St. Louis, then 60 Peel Street. He says he went through Alexandra, Central, and LCVI. He then left for Toronto for his last year of high school to play basketball. He kept playing in university. After that he played pro in Europe for seven or eight seasons. Then he moved to California and started a wine business, where he says he was for 15 years. The conversation shifts into wine and how people learn to like it. Matt says he got into it through Government Grants and working with wineries. He likes the stories behind the bottles and how the vineyards differ. Louis agrees that exposure changes what people are willing to try. He describes being an ambassador for wineries and doing wine presentations. The discussion keeps circling back to Ponte Vino and what made it work. The list kept moving. There were always new wines on it. It went from 30 or 40 selections to 50, then 100, then 200, and eventually around 300 different wines. That kind of variety is presented as unusual outside Toronto. Brian and Matt connect that to the local market. They talk about appealing to Coerthas people in a way that feels familiar but still lifted. Louis and the hosts discuss Chef Monroe and the way food and wine shape the room together. The food is framed as a bridge between old-school comfort and a higher-end feel. Louis mentions that if you look back, people would probably handle the past differently. The conversation treats that as normal business learning rather than drama. It also moves into branding and how a place keeps itself visible. Louis talks about using reels and simple, current visuals. The idea is not to overbuild it. The idea is to show what is happening this week. He and the hosts land on that small-business rhythm where the next move is practical, local, and a little improvised.

As heard by us

A grounded look at wine, restaurants, and learning on the job.

Louis Karkabasis reads like a local operator with a lot of miles on him: raised in Lindsay, through university and pro basketball in Europe, then 15 years in California where he started a wine business.

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Why you'd press play

A Lindsay-raised former pro basketball player turns a wine-heavy restaurant story into a lesson on making things elevated but accessible.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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