Andrew Lampasone
Born in Akron Ohio in 1969, Andrew made a v-line for South Florida in the fourth grade (1978) and has been there ever since. A graduate of North East High School in Fort Lauderdale, Andrew worked his way through high school and the first eight years of college in the restaurant business in Broward County.
His first job in the restaurant business was as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant, Hong Kong Palace, and then as a bus boy at Filippo’s Italian restaurant on East Commerical Boulevard. Andrew was the youngest full-cut waiter at the Raindancer Restaurant located just a bit further east but still on Commercial Boulevard. This was his first serious exposure to wine and ironically the founder of the Wine Watch, Jim Turner wrote the wine training manual for this restaurant group during the early 1980’s.
The year was 1990 and Andrew landed a job at one of the area’s top restaurants, Café Max in Pompano Beach on Atlantic Boulevard. Still working his way through college, but this time he was getting more experience as a sommelier, this was where Andrew began his career in wine.
He attended BCC beginning his collegiate career as a Theater major and was featured in seven Operas and musical theater performances. Then, on to FAU majoring in Chemistry and Biology and finally switching to Communications before dropping out of school with 160+ credit hours and four majors to open a restaurant as a sweat equity partner in 1996. While working at Café Maxx Andrew was mentored by South Florida wine guru Jim Turner. Jim was a triple threat in the wine industry; wine writer, wine merchant and restaurant consultant. There are very few wine professionals that have ever crossed the barriers of consultant, critic and merchant with as much dignity as Jim Turner.
The new restaurant like 90% of all the independent restaurants failed in its first three months, but it was a great experience putting it together and in addition to making life-long friends, Andrew also gained invaluable experience and a furthered his passion for food and wine. Andrew then helped Darrel and Oliver open East City Grill on Fort Lauderdale Beach. Andrew helped to establish this restaurant as one of the premier spots for dining on Fort Lauderdale’s newly renovated strip. This area was now focusing on high end tourists rather than the traditional spring break crowd. His thirst for wine was too great to keep him here long as only six months into this new restaurant's opening Andrew left to work for the newly created Bacchus Wine Group, a fine wine focused division of National Distributing Company. Here he learned the inter-workings of large distributor and developed more industry contacts and a greater working knowledge of the wine industry from the distribution side.
In 1998 Andrew’s mentor Jim Turner, the founder of the Wine Watch, was fatally ill and one of Jim’s main concerns was the legacy of his store, the Wine Watch. Although this was not the ideal way to start a business it provided Andrew the opportunity to buy the Wine Watch and continue the legacy of one of South Florida’s most revered wine personality.
From 1998 to the present Andrew has owned and operated the Wine Watch and today, the Wine Watch features over 4,000 different selections and a floor to ceiling display of wines in 3,000 square feet of display area that is housed in a new location that is custom built to house over 30,000 bottles they have over 10,000 active customers with over $3,500,000 in sales annually for the last five years Wine Watch is one of the largest wine only retailers in the South east United States.