This fall, ICE graduate Inez Holderness opened On The Square in her hometown of Tarboro, North Carolina. The venture with fiancé Stephen Ribustello is an ambitious one – to bring appreciation of fine food and wine to this town of 11,000 – but so far Holderness has no complaints. The combination restaurant, wine bar, wine store has been enthusiastically received by the public and press, and Holderness finds her customers open-minded and eager to learn more about wine.

Holderness attended the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill to study journalism, but, having fallen in love with food along the way, she left for New York after graduation to attended ICE. The school's wine program made a big impression on Holderness, and her first job after graduation was at Best Cellars, the ground-breaking, mid-priced wine store on Manhattan's Upper East Side. During her time there she read an article about Andrea Immer, sommelier at Windows on the World, and impulsively called her, convinced that Windows was the best place in New York to learn about wine. Holderness lucked into a job as assistant cellar master. "Assistant cellar master translated to box mover," says Holderness good naturedly. "So, I moved boxes for a year, and soaked up everything I could."

Holderness moved briefly to California to "get closer to the grapes," but four months later Windows lured her back to New York, and she became the restaurant's Beverage Director. After just a year in the industry she was buyer for the largest grossing restaurant in the North America, with $6 million in wine sales alone.

Holderness and her fiancé Ribustello – who had become the restaurant's sommelier – both survived the collapse of the World Trade Center, and although she went on to help open the new BlueFin restaurant in the W Hotel-Times Square, the couple had already decided that they wanted to open their own restaurant outside New York.

Holderness is extremely positive about the ownership experience. "Because of our backgrounds, we're totally prepared for what we're doing now," says Holderness of the venture. "Statistically, the chance of failure is high, but we've had great training, so in many ways it's not as hard as I thought."

May, 2003