Chuck Smeriglio and Stephen Wipf’s friendship dates from earlier than their partnership in Copper Still Moonshine Grill. The two and their wives used to get together Saturday nights around a backyard fire pit, have some drinks and some fun — and talk.
They were general managers with an ownership stake in different locations of a local restaurant chain, and while Smeriglio considered it a great job, they still harbored a shared dream of opening their own place. It was a frequent topic of conversation and they even would put ideas into notebooks.
“And then one night our wives were like, ‘you know what, guys? Shut the F up with these stories. It’s the same stories every Saturday. You guys talk about it, you’re going to do this. Either do it or stop talking about it,’” Smeriglio said. “And we all laughed and joked.”
But the next morning, Smeriglio’s wife, Amy, asked him why didn’t he start his own thing. Smeriglio had a litany of reasons: good job, good pay, loves the company, 401(k), comfortable life.
“She’s like, ‘that’s not what you want to do. You’ve tried changing the menu. You’ve tried changing policies. They won’t let you. You can’t create your own food. You’re a foodie.’” Smeriglio said. “So she kind of pushed me. She’s like, ‘you and Stephen really should.’”
That prompted Chuck to call Wipf to say that Amy was in his ear about a restaurant.
“’She wants us to do something,’” Smeriglio recalls telling him. “He’s like, ‘oh my God, are you serious?’ I go, ‘yeah, why?’ ‘Raquel’s saying the same thing to me.’”
So they hatched a plan: They would not speak to each other for two weeks. In the meantime, they would put their financials together. Then, they would sit down to dinner — without drinks — and compare notes.
“And, man, our ideas were so close together,” Smeriglio said. “They were so similar in everything. And then we shook hands and said, ‘let’s get a lawyer.’”
So goes the birth story of Copper Still Moonshine Grill in Gilbert. Of course, it was tougher than having similar ideas. They were giving up good jobs and otherwise did not have deep pockets. They had no investors beyond the two couples. If payroll was not met, it was coming out of their wives’ pockets from their jobs.
And starting out in 2013, they were doing everything — cooking, busing, bartending, even cleaning the bathrooms.
But they had a vision to which they were true. Smeriglio grew up a fan of the TV show “Cheers,” which, along with his love of food and cooking, started him thinking about having his own place someday. His dad urged him get a restaurant job to see if he truly liked it, and he did about every job in the place working his way up the ladder.
They wanted a local theme. It is a sports bar with 26 TVs, but it emphasizes the local teams — Suns, Cardinals, Diamondbacks and Arizona State.
They also wanted the name to reflect something local. Working off the 5 C’s of the Arizona economy — copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate — they zeroed in on copper as something with which they could work.
“So we geared towards copper — copper still,” Smeriglio said. “Then it kind of flowed. We were sitting around the fire and the TV was in the background. And that show ‘Moonshiners’ was on.”
It was headed toward Copper Still Bar and Grill, but the show inspired Raquel Wipf to suggest Copper Still Moonshine Grill. When Smeriglio found on Google that Arizona indeed had its own history with moonshiners, that clinched.
It also took the restaurant in a whole direction. They have a copper bar top, the name in a copper-license plates display, and, while they don’t distill their own, moonshine is used in food items and drinks.
When they discovered moonshine was made in different flavors, Smeriglio and Wipf immediately got creative.
“That was about seven, eight o’clock at night, and me and Steven stayed up till five in the morning punching ideas and stuff out,” Smeriglio said. “And the next day we went to sleep, and in the morning, woke up and I went right back to his house.”
It also is used as a marinade in some of the foods on the 67-item menu, like their version of a Philadelphia cheesesteak, the Moonshine Philly. They also have a more local twist in the Steak Phoenix sandwich with a dry rub on the shaved steak, spicy mayonnaise and pepper jack cheese.
Being a foodie, Smeriglio has contributed his own items to the menu, and the chefs have created some. Even one of the bartenders suggested an appetizer, Jalapeno Boats, that has proven popular. They are jalapeños that have been cut in half with the seeds and membranes taken out, then filled with a mix of bacon, cheddar and cream cheese before being dipped in a beer batter.
The last item in the restaurant’s success is the families’ involvement. While the wives also are co-owners, they have their own jobs. But Smeriglio’s sons, Trevor and Hayden, work as general manager and bar manager respectively.
And Smeriglio is big on making his regular customers into family, recalling his love of “Cheers.” He had some over to his home for a post-Super Bowl party. When he arrives at work, he works the floor, checking in on customers and catching up with regulars.
It’s more of the same when he leaves.
“Every time I get ready to leave, it takes 15, 20 minutes,” he said. “I got to go shake hands, ‘Hey, I’m taking off, see you later, Tom, Bob, Joe.’ Say goodbye to the staff and everything. My friends make fun of me. ‘Chuck, what are you doing?’ Trust me, if I don’t say goodbye, they get mad at me.”
Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on Twitter. We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
Tom Blodgett Senior News Editor | Gilbert @sp_blodgett
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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