Sundry & Vice

Cincinnati has always been a city where reinvention feels possible. After nearly twenty years in marketing and advertising as a designer and creative director, I found myself looking for a different kind of creative challenge. That search led me to an unlikely Craigslist posting for a cocktail bar looking for someone with ice cream experience. At the time, it seemed like an odd detour. In hindsight, it became the foundation for everything that followed.

As Cincinnati’s urban core was experiencing a renaissance, it was attracting ambitious chefs, bartenders, designers, and entrepreneurs from across the country. Sundry & Vice was one of those places—a cocktail bar built by people who brought big-market ideas to a city where experimentation was not only possible, but encouraged. The team had developed an apprenticeship-style training program rooted in precision, hospitality, and culinary technique rather than simply making drinks.

I entered as an apprentice and learned from some of the best bartenders in the city. Every ingredient had a purpose. Every interaction with a guest mattered. The bar operated more like a chef-driven restaurant than a neighborhood cocktail spot, and that philosophy permanently changed the way I approached hospitality. I became fascinated by the relationship between operations, storytelling, design, and guest experience.

That experience also revealed something unexpected: the skills I had developed in branding and creative direction translated naturally into hospitality. Building memorable experiences wasn’t all that different from building memorable brands. I continued doing freelance design work while immersing myself in the bar world, eventually blending both disciplines into what I jokingly call “mixed media” a career built equally on creativity, operations, and hospitality.

Looking back, Sundry & Vice wasn’t simply where I learned to bartend. It was where I discovered the intersection of design, hospitality, and leadership that has shaped every role I’ve taken since.

Hospitality Group: Circle Hospitality
General Manager: Julia Petiprin
Bartender: Giacomo Ciminello