Claude Rains starred in the 1933 cinema classic The Invisible Man. Jack Georgalas isn’t exactly angling for the lead in a remake, but he is not without a bit of envy for the title character.

“It’s very nice of you to ask,” he says, quite graciously, when some nosy person calls with a bunch of pesky questions about his family’s beer wholesaling business, “but I’d rather be invisible” where a lot of publicity is concerned. “I’m just not that interested,” admitting that he’d prefer to be the one who drives by in his car unnoticed as opposed to one who would cause a traffic jam.

Nevertheless, people in the vicinity of Newport News, Va., USA have noticed Georgalas’ operation, Tri-Cities Beverage. It’s hard to miss, having been a mainstay of the local beer and wine distributing trade for almost a half-century. Try as they might, Georgalas and the 180 employees of this house of Miller, of imports, of fine Italian wine, can’t go undercover. They’re out there and they’re getting the job done.

“I’m surprised more people than I realized have heard of our company,” Georgalas says. Perhaps he shouldn’t be because things seem to be going pretty well.

“We hear about all the problems out there,” he admits, “but we have no complaints. Our business is up and we anticipate the best year in the history of the company.” That’s a history that goes back to 1959 and remains owned and operated by the Georgalases.

There are reasons unique to Tri-Cities, perhaps, and some other ones that have a lot to do with the marketplace—though Tri-Cities’ ability to understand and service it doesn’t hurt its cause. “In this particular area,” the chairman of the board notes of southeastern Virginia, “we have an influx of military and government dollars,” meaning the US Navy’s presence and, especially, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. “The economy has been relatively stable over the years. There are not the highs and lows you might find in a place like Ohio or other parts of the country.”

The high end is the distributor’s friend. Whether seaman or civilian, Georgalas has found a hankering on behalf of his market’s consumers for something above average.

“Our Miller brands do very well to start with,” Georgalas relates, “but they’re only 17 percent of our total dollar volume, which is rather unique,” acknowledging a flagship group like Miller “usually makes up a much bigger share of your business.” But Tri-Cities has “really diversified,” particularly into imports such as Heineken, Corona, Guinness, Bass and Red Stripe.

Those are import stars and they take the stage for Tri-Cities every day of the year. “Our imported portfolio makes a significant contribution,” Georgalas calculates, “and every case we sell there, it’s double the dollars” of the domestics. “That’s the thing, really, that’s impacted us a great deal.”

Tastes are made over time, but times do change—as do demographics. When Tri-Cities opened for business 49 years ago, “it was strictly blue collar, shipyard workers. All we had when we started in 1959 was National Bohemian” out of Baltimore, a beer still on board after numerous corporate changes of hands. Pabst-like Natty Boh devotion notwithstanding, “this market here is evolving,” Georgalas says. “It’s gone from premium to superpremium to imports.”

The same can be said of Tri-Cities’ profitable foray into wine. Again, it’s followed a trajectory that draws a stark line between then and now. Then, the chairman remembers, it was a package store, a jug of wine and thou. Now, “it’s about quality—white tablecloth restaurants. The average guy wants something a bit better and is willing to pay a bit more. The whole market has turned. It’s just more upscale.”

No wonder the Tri-Cities wine portfolio follows the trend where it goes: up. That includes Bolla, Sterling, Cruz Garcia, C.K. Mondavi, Yellow Tail—wine from California and wine from all over the world—15 different high-end wines in all. “A couple of our people were just over in Europe,” Georgalas reports, “shopping for Burgundies. They found some quality merchandise.” Fine dining establishments like to buy that kind of wine from Tri-Cities, but so do the chain stores and “that’s a big business for us like it is for everybody else.”

Whoever the account or supplier is, the Tri-Cities trademark, what Georgalas fervently believes gives the wholesaler its own quality, is the “dignity and courtesy” everybody in the company brings to his or her job on an individual basis. “Those are important ingredients for anything you do in life, whether it’s with friends or employees, and certainly with vendors. Everybody is a human being. They can come in to work on any given day and be upset over one thing or another. You have to stay cool, let the heat dissipate and go from there.”

With a thoughtful philosophy like that governing his life and his business, it’s no wonder the one thing Georgalas will probably never be successful at achieving is invisibility.

VITAL STATS
TRI-CITIES BEVERAGE
CHAIRMAN:  Anastasius Jack Georgalas
HEADQUARTERS: Newport News, Va., USA
’07 REVENUE: US$50 million
EMPLOYEES: 180
GOALS: To maintain quality and control over what can be controlled, keep everything in proper perspective and grow.

From Beverage World March 15, 2008