Two Sets of Dynamic Duos Bring Wine & Design to Montgomery and Madison, Alabama

Running a business by oneself can be a huge challenge, whether it’s managing day-to-day operations or handling customer service and financials. That’s why these sets of dynamic duos decided to go into business together by owning and operating Wine & Design franchises.

Meet Wine & Design’s newest franchisees: mother-daughter team Monica Virgil and Imani Whitehead; and husband-and-wife pair Dexter and Maria Troupe. The newly minted owners of the paint-and-sip concept are gearing up to open their respective studios in two Alabama cities, Montgomery and Madison. The forthcoming studios will be the brand’s first two studios in the state of Alabama and thus represent a notable development milestone for Wine & Design.

Franchisee background

So, what led these franchisee pairs to bring Wine & Design to Alabama?

Let’s start with Monica Virgil and Imani Whitehead. After moving to Montgomery from Atlanta due to their family’s service in the Air National Guard, Virgil, a former math teacher, opened her first franchise business, Mathnasium. After graduating high school, Whitehead, following in her stepfather’s footsteps, also joined the Air National Guard.*

With a few years of successful franchise ownership under her belt with Mathnasium, Virgil decided it was time for her next foray into business—and sought out her daughter to join her. This led the duo to begin looking at the different franchising options available to them in the Montgomery market.

“We did a lot of research and quickly noticed that the Montgomery area is really lacking in diverse entertainment options, so we wanted something that would provide that for the city,” Whitehead said. “When we came across the Wine & Design brand, it was something we hadn’t seen before. The aesthetic and branding of it really matched our style—both my mother and I enjoy drinking wine and painting as hobbies.”

**After digging into the business side of the brand, the mother-daughter team was hooked. Virgil and Whitehead signed an agreement to open Alabama’s first Wine & Design studio in December 2019. Although Wine & Design is their first joint venture, both feel quite prepared for the task at hand.

Thanks to her Mathnasium franchise, Virgil feels she has a good handle on running a business and has developed a lot of great relationships within the Montgomery community she plans to leverage when the location opens. Similarly, Whitehead’s military background provides her with useful organizational and administrative skills that will be crucial to helping her run the Wine & Design franchise.

Second location opens

Wine & Design also has another set of savvy business owners at the helm: husband-and-wife team Dexter and Maria Troupe in Madison, Alabama. After meeting her now-husband Dexter on a blind date, Maria relocated from Flint, Michigan to the Madison area, where the two currently reside. Presently, Maria works as a budget analyst for the Army and Dexter is employed by GE, where he has worked for the last 30+ years.

While at lunch one day, Maria was discussing a route for supplemental income with a friend and began looking into franchising as a possible option. The two thought about going into business together, but ultimately decided to pursue separate ventures. Maria re-evaluated her options and began looking at franchises she could invest in by herself. While in the midst of her search, Maria remembered a particular brand she saw on Shark Tank—Wine & Design.

“I remember watching Harriet Mills, Wine & Design’s founder and CEO, on Shark Tank and really liking the whole paint-and-sip concept,” Troupe said. “I also really loved the fact that it’s a woman-owned company. After rewatching Harriet’s Shark Tank feature and doing some research, I knew Wine & Design was the franchise I wanted to invest in.”

Like Virgil and Whitehead, Troupe noticed that the entertainment options in the Madison community were extremely limited. Most entertainment options were in Huntsville, the next town over. “I wanted to bring something to the Madison community, something that people would really enjoy doing,” Maria said. “The Huntsville-Madison area is growing and is expected to become the largest city in the state in the next decade, so it makes sense to operate a business in this area.”

With help from her husband Dexter, Maria signed an agreement to become a Wine & Design franchisee not long after the Montgomery team, making their Madison studio the brand’s second forthcoming Alabama location.

**The Troupes will be hiring an operations managers to help them run the day-to-day aspects of the business while Maria continues working for the Department of Defense. She plans to be in the studio during the evenings and feels her retail background has best prepared her to take on this new role with operating a Wine & Design location. “Before working at the Department of Defense, I worked as a retail manager for a few large retailers,” she said.

“My 20+ years of retail management experience taught me how to plan, organize, prioritize and lead; mastering these skills, along with my commitment to succeed and hiring the right staff, has given me the tools needed to have a prosperous studio.”

Since its 2010 origin in North Carolina, Wine & Design has grown to more than 80 locations across 22 states. The premier paint-and-sip franchise provides a creative environment in which guests can enjoy a glass of their favorite vino while flexing their artistic muscles, all in the context of a guided class setting. Wine & Design provides franchisees five distinct branded divisions that fall under one franchise fee: Art Buzz Kids, Team Building, D.I.Y., On Wheels and Paint it Forward.