Christina Veira wants the industry to learn more seriously

©  Christina Veira

The co-owner of Toronto’s Bar Mordecai and hospitality educator, Christina Veira, is on a mission to change how we think about education behind bars.

“It’s stubbornness more than anything else that it’s still open.” Christina Veira is talking about Bar Mordecai, the bar she co-owns in Toronto, Canada, which opened on January 29, 2020. With two bars, 220 capacity and four karaoke rooms, it’s a project which she was invited to come on board with when the world was about to close down. Three years later, and number 43 on North America’s 50 Best list is “still a process” Veira says.

Veira is one of North America’s brightest stars in the drinks world. As well as operating a successful bar, she is a certified WSET instructor, director of programming for Toronto Cocktail Week, the bar and beverage curator for Restaurants Canada, and the holder of many industry accolades.

She started in restaurants, beginning as a dishwasher before outdoor hosting, booking, keeping and auditing, and bussing at high-end restaurants around 2011. “Toronto was funny around then as a lot of people had been trained in high end places, but they all closed because of the recession.” This resulted in Veira’s quick move up into management, and running wine programmes, before the thought five years later of opening a bar when Toronto’s cocktail scene was fledgling.

The following five years saw Veira learning the ropes behind the bar – taking part in competitions, attending conferences, learning the trade from the bottom up. “Wine is one of my first loves [Veira has a WSET level 3 in wine] and when WSET was highlighting its spirits programme, they were having problems finding people who knew about spirits who were also familiar with the WSET method.” This was Veira’s step into spirits education – a step which propelled her further into the world of cocktails. 

Her big goal is to start a school in Canada (Stave School) where there is a broader range of education and certificates and the be all and end all. “There are so many different ways of learning. How can we modernise it? Make it more open to people who are neurodivergent? A lot of people are missing very basic tools for management; for some people maths is difficult; or knowing how to save money; even understanding HR.”

Leaning into leadership

Veira describes her own leadership style as ‘patient’, something she’s developed especially compared to when she was younger. Unsurprisingly, Bar Mordecai has a lot of staff, and Veira and her partners are keen to make sure they’re supported working in such a unique space. “We lean into training which is why when people ask if we have had a huge issue hiring, we found that we really only had long searches for people at management level.”

She finds that she is more patient overall with her staff, especially the less experienced ones, and she’s also learned to see more value in how people relate to their co-workers and guests on a personal level. “When you’re young, this is easy to dismiss. Some of these things aren’t soft skills but completely necessary for your business.”

Working in somewhere in Toronto where a regular clientele and industry are the norm also means leading by example, says Veira. “Some people come in and I’ve known them for like 15 years. If you’ve been bad in those relationships, people remember. Maybe someone was a complete mess 10 years ago, and now they’re in charge of a big team.”

She’s also learned that humility in a team is a valuable strength, describing her own as ‘unpretentious’ – “they don’t really scoff at anything people order”. For Veira, knowing her customers are having a good time when she isn’t there is tantamount, and having a staff which is kind and even fun has been a surprise: “That is something I didn’t necessarily see as much coming from fine dining - it is very easy to be dismissive of people who rely on personality.”

Sharing experiences

At this year’s Bar Convent Berlin, Veira’s talk ‘So you’ve been offered a partnership?’ was her chance to explain to future bar owners the warning signs they need to be aware of when they enter into a business opportunity where they own a percentage of that business.

“A lot of people are owners of bars in small percentages (even the ones who seem famous) and  their contracts aren’t great. There are certain issues in any kid of partnerships, but there are very few resources on how bars should work, how things should be spread, how people can work together.”

While you may have close relationships with your bar teams, she continues, your relationship with your partners is a different beast. Where you are in your life, and what you want also play a role when it comes to dealing with the inevitable challenges or decision that come with running a business. “If you’re 28 you don’t have family, or your family isn’t in good health and financially stable, your ability to weather a storm is going to be very different.”

Veira’s love of educating people has evolved from teaching about categories to sharing the last few years of her experience of co-owning a bar. It’s a subject still shrouded in mystery in the industry – and Veira is intent on pulling back the curtain.