How It All Began.

Published at BantuCola

In 2018, Casks & Flights Wine Tasting Room was incorporated into the state of  Florida and opened on South Palafox Street as the first Black-owned wine-tasting room in Pensacola. During the pandemic, we changed our bar and restaurant into a place where people who needed help could get it. We sold food such as chicken breasts, ground beef, cheese, and milk and house supplies such as bleach, toilet paper, paper towels, and much more at a cost to make sure people who needed help would receive it. In addition, we made sure that our employees were all paid and didn’t suffer because they couldn’t work. In addition, if there were any outdoor events downtown or in other places, we made sure we were a part of these events as a means of support. We participated in Black Business Weekend with Bantucola, Gallery Night, Pensacon, and much more.
 
We have operated a successful establishment, selling liquor with the approval of the City of Pensacola since May of 2020. Since then, Casks & Flights has operated above board as a tax-paying restaurant and event space in downtown Pensacola facilitating food, fun, and fellowship. We are proud that Casks & Flights helps enable the City of Pensacola to achieve a prominent status on numerous lists and promotions. We enable all the residents of the broader Pensacola metro area to feel welcome and wanted downtown.

It wasn’t until October of 2022 that we were contacted about complaints and non-compliance. The first complaint we received was about noise, although the sound quality seems the same at every bar and restaurant in that area. Shortly after the “noise complaint” came questions about our licenses to operate, subtle threats to our employees about their employment, and complaints about our existence as an entity.
  
What They Have Had to Endure

Furthermore, having to prove our ability to operate legally, Casks & Flights has been harassed by the neighboring bars and has even been threatened by others about our existence in this community. To be singled out and forced to prove that we legally belong has become taxing and quite irritating to the owners and spills over into the community that supports and loves this establishment.

We will never be the great City we can be without minority businesses. Casks & Flights was and always will be more than just a bar. It’s a part of Pensacola’s history, and our younger generation and community need to see Black-owned businesses in their town. It gives them hope. It breaks molds of mindsets. It promotes forward thinking. People in Pensacola are always talking about how things are changing and how we are growing into a metropolitan area. However, without Black-owned businesses thriving, Pensacola will never be the flourishing city it can and should be.

The Journey to protect small businesses in Pensacola continues; there are desires that could be detrimental to the sustainability and growth of not only Casks and Flights but other small businesses in Downtown Pensacola. We need your signature in support of keeping the new City of Pensacola Ordinance AS IT IS WITH NO ADDITIONAL CHANGES! This ordinance was APPROVED  6 to 1 with the full support of  Mayor DC Reeds & 6 of the current city council members in favor of the ordinance.

Your signature says NO TO unnecessary strains  ON SMALL BUSINESS and that you agree with leaving the ordinance as the majority of the City Of Pensacola Council and Mayor approved it.