My husband Thomas Silvey and I, Josephine Silvey, own Roaring River Vineyards (RRV). Go to www.RoaringRiverVineyards.com to get more information about us and see our property's video. We also own
the chez Josephine Restuarant and tasting room (wine & beer), two event venues, vacation rentals rented through www.VRBO.com (units 513211, 437203, 437950, and 1263820). We also accommodate RVs in our RV park at RRV rented through www.RoverPass.com, and we are also RV hosts for www.HarvestHosts.com.(HH). Harvest Hosts is a business that refers RVers to places that allow them ...
Our vineyard is reminiscent of a French hillside vineyard on the banks of the Roaring River located in Traphill, NC. We are in the Yadkin Wine Appellation, in NC wine Country, situated close to Stone Mountain State Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway. We are north of Charlotte (1-hour drive), Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point (~1-hour+ drive), and about 2.5 hours from Raleigh. In your backyard yet away from it all!
All our buildings overlook the Roaring River. However, the most exciting views come from our restaurant's cantilevered, covered porch that is three-story high and has excellent views of the river and the ruins of the Brewer sawmill. We bought the land initially to build a weekend retreat. After asking my husband if we could plant a couple of rows of grapevines to remind me our my native France- he ended up looking for where to buy them. He ended up signing us both to a vineyard development seminar at Surry Community College. Upon leaving this seminar, Tom had stars in his eyes, and the vineyard dream was born. So be careful what you ask your husband because you may find yourself in a similar situation.๐
It is now six years since we have been in the hospitality business. We bought the land in 2001, developed the vineyards soon after that, planted our grapevines in 2009. The building construction started in 2010 and continues to this day. We opened our restaurant and tasting room on July 14, 2016 (Bastille Day). It has been quite a ride, and we are continuously working on growing our business, improving our operations, and simplifying our processes. We used Square to charge customers when we were at a wine festival. Recently, we needed a way to capture our Wine Club Members. Initially, we used Woo Commerce with the Stripe App, but the website developer did not completely set it up, and we could not get the line item breakdown needed for our Tax submissions.
Later, we processed the wine club through our ToastTab.com POS system. However, that was too labor-intensive because we had to enter those numbers manually. Finally, we searched for a way to expedite this process, finding it in SaqureUp.
I did not get any training, and that was not good. We used recurring invoices, but we already had contracts with our customers and had their credit cards on file. Some of our customers would cancel their membership by not paying their invoices. I was not too fond of that approach and wanted to charge them directly, bypassing the invoices.
I asked my Sales executive if I had to use recurring invoices along with subscriptions. I did not think I had to use recurring invoices, but my sales exec insisted that I use those. At this point, I had both recurring invoices and plans/subscriptions. It just seemed too much, but I got no answer on that subject. In the end, I double-charged everybody.
I fixed everything today only because I finally got someone on the customer support line who spoke English well and helped me with my dilemma (after four phone calls with overseas operators who also misunderstood). I hope that it will work the next time I use it in the end of December.
