The Next Era of Napa Experiences - Mackenzie Magro, Napa Valley Bike Tours

[music] Welcome to Wine Country Business, the podcast exploring the strategy and trends shaping the global world of wine, spirits, and luxury hospitality. I'm your host, Andrew Allison, a third-generation Napa Valley native and exited startup founder. I'm bringing you inside candid conversations with the business leaders that are finding our industry today. [music] This show is brought to you by Top Shelf Ventures. Top Shelf finds, funds, and accelerates the premier opportunities in the global alcohol and vice categories led by industry experts with a track record of major acquisitions. Their team acts as the catalyst for disruptive startups reaching for global scale. They don't just invest. They bring operational horsepower, a huge network to you, the entrepreneur, to help you dominate your market. That's topshelfventures.com. Accelerating the world's most innovative brands. Let's dive in. [music] Who are you and what do you do? My name is Mackenzie Maggro and I am the CEO of Napa Valley Bike Tours. You have had an amazing journey with the business and you just acquired it yourself. So management by out, but we will get there. How did you find your way to Napa Valley? Okay, so I grew up in Los Angeles on the Santa Monica Venice border. I went to Santa Monica High School. After high school, I went to San Francisco State University and I was a studio art major in fine arts painting. And I landed a job after I graduated from college working for a graphic design firm in the Philippines on a teeny little island called Saboo. And so I moved over there. I lived there for just under a year and I worked in business development. So I was doing like cold calls, sales. It was a really interesting experience for me because I knew that I loved art. So I was kind of a liaison between clients and artists, especially because I spoke English. So I could kind of help bridge that gap for some of them. And it was kind of the moment that I realized art was a passion of mine and I really enjoyed business and business development. I was 23 and I came back from the Philippines after working over there and I continued working for the company in Berkeley. And then after a little while, I decided I wanted to move to Napa Valley because of my husband. He's from here and we had met one another in college. So I made the leap. I quit the job. I moved out here and I started working. I started working as a personal assistant for someone in the wine world. And that was kind of what got my foot in the door in Napa Valley and in this industry. And then I, in February of 2014, I saw a job posting for, I mean, I'm young, remember a concierge job at a bike tour company called Napa Valley Biketours. - Wow. - Yeah. - So that's where the journey started. - That's where it started. - So you would work your way up through Napa Valley Biketours over the years. For those that have never been to Napa, give a lay of the land. What are the most common tourist activities that people would do? - Sure. - So in Napa, there's obviously wine tasting. And then there's kind of like vehicle activities that get you to wine tasting. So there's the wine train. There's car service. And then there's Napa Valley Biketours. Amongst, there's a sprinkle of other really great fun things that you can do where it's very culinary here, obviously. So there's great things in that world. But there are a lot of activities. I think something that's unique about Napa Valley Biketours is the bicycling component, is an activity in and of itself. - Totally. - So you can come and visit us in the context of athlete, sustainability, but it doesn't have to be wine focus, which I think is a really cool edge that we have. - The industry's gone through some technical innovation over the time that you've been here. It was all pneumatic bikes when you started. How did the e-bike trend change the business? - Oh my gosh, it's changed so much for us. So when I first started in the business, the majority of our guests were definitely bike enthusiasts. They owned a bike back home. They went on back road trips in other countries. Bicycling was a passion and a hobby of theirs, both at home and as they traveled. And then when we got electric bikes, we really saw that it bridged a gap between people who wanted to do this activity, but maybe didn't have the stamina, or they were a little bit nervous about their fitness level. And so it's been amazing for us. And electric bikes are so much fun. We have people who come to us all the time and say, "I'm a cyclist back at home. I did not want to get on an e-bike." And as soon as I did, it's like, "You can't go back." And what's cool about them in the rental context when you're on vacation is you can cover double the amount of ground that you would on a pneumatic bike. And so it really allows you to see everything that Napa has to offer in a short period of time. Totally. And I'm one of those people that doesn't want to get super sweaty when I'm going wine tasting or overheat and then just not enjoy my wine tasting experience overall. And so I think e-bikes for me personally is just that ability to get that fresh air, see the views, cover a larger distance. But I really, really, I've had the opportunity to go on both guided and just day rentals with your business. And I've loved all those experiences. Thank you. And you realized that you wanted to buy the business. How long ago was that? It was quite a few years ago. And so you just woke up one day and I think I could do this forever. Yeah, I kind of got to a point where-- so I started as a concierge in the business. And then from there, I pretty quickly, my predecessor, who was the previous logistics director in the business, he left. And I kind of just organically got put into the role of doing his position because it was quick. It was kind of like mid-season. It was go time we had to go. And I really thrived in his position. We essentially were able to evolve the role and just work smarter and more efficiently. And so I got to a point where I'd reached a ceiling in the company. And I said to the owner one day, I just said really jokingly. I said, you know, there's going to come a point where I have to use my brain in a different way. I'm not going to stay here forever and do this. And I said, this was like a really quick brief conversation almost a joke. If you ever were ready to retire, you know you'd have to come and talk to me first. Two-second conversation. He didn't even blink. He just kept going on to something else. Cut two of years later, he had been spending quite a bit of time in Mexico. Him and his wife had a condo out there and they were spending weeks, months at a time. And just leaving the business in your hands? Yeah, leaving the business in my hands. He was pretty uninvolved myself and my colleague, Kelly, who's been with the business for a long time as well. Her and I truly have been running the show for a long time, which is why I'm so excited about this and confident. I mean, we have good footing. Her and I have both been doing this together for over a decade. Yeah, truly. Running the business. When you work with people that you enjoy and you can trust it, it really does make the days just fly by. Yeah. The owner called me one day. I'll never forget. I was in the back of the supply closet in our bike shop and he called me from Mexico and he said, "Hey, I've been thinking about something and I want to ask you a question." And I thought he was going to ask me to move out to Mexico to start a bike tour company out in Cabo somewhere. And I was so excited. Like, oh my gosh. That was my first flash thought of what he was going to ask me. And then he said, "I've been thinking about kind of what you said jokingly not too long ago and I think I want to retire. Do you want to start this conversation?" And so that's kind of where things evolved. You had sowed the seed and then you had stayed demonstrated your ability to operate it. And that makes a ton of sense. What were some of the highest highs in the lowest lows? And I know post-COVID was a great boom. And then there's been a big tourism drop off after that. But more or less in the hospitality space, how has that impacted your business? Yeah. So post-COVID, we saw huge influx of travelers, especially from the drive market. We were booming. Everyone wanted to do an outdoor activity. It was really, really good for us. Our numbers are really on par with pre-COVID. I think that tourism is doing well in Napa Valley. I'm really confident about, I don't really look at that. Like 2022, I don't even really, I kind of like throw that PNL to the side because it was a really great year, but it was an anomaly that we're not going to really see that again. Sure. But we are right back, if not just a little bit up from where we were pre-COVID, which makes me feel really confident. And I think that Napa Valley is definitely going through a shift. There's something going on around here, but I think that it's good. I think we're shaking up the industry. People are having to think a little bit harder about the experiences that they're going to offer to our travelers. And I think it's a good thing. What is some of the things that Napa Valley is getting really right? It has a lot of brand equity. Yeah. It has a global cache. And what are some of the things Napa Valley can continue to improve on? I think that Napa Valley can continue to be more diverse. I think the problem that we got ourselves into is feel like kind of overnight post COVID. Everyone wanted to become like a luxury cab house. All of a sudden, everyone's tasting, fee skyrocketed. Nobody was offering walk-in tastings anymore. It's like we kind of lost the core of what Napa Valley is and that's hospitality. At the end of the day, everything here has got to come back to. We are in the hospitality business and we want people to feel good when they come here. Sure. That's that is our core value at Napa Valley bike tours. I mean, we want everyone who comes and rides with us to say that was the coolest thing that we did while we were in Napa Valley. I think that a lot of wineries went a little too far and everyone adopted the exact same thing. Sure. But I do what I think that they're doing right is I see that that's starting to go away and back to just that term diversity. We need the high end luxury allocation list properties. Let's go. We need super high end properties. We don't want the French laundry to go anywhere. But we also want Napa Valley to be accessible to people who maybe can't dine or stay in those luxury spaces, but also still want to come and experience everything that Napa has to offer. And I will say I've seen guests of ours. We do a lot of private business. I've seen a lot of our guests who are dining at Michelin Star restaurants and are on allocation lists telling me I just want to go in and do like a belly up to the bar tasting. I don't need every single experience to be at this caliber. Totally. I do think that Napa's scaled back and they've started to understand that their walk in tastings are coming back. We want people to come here on a whim. It doesn't have to be so meticulously planned. I do think that there has been an attrition of spreadsheet jockeys that, you know, like, hey, in our spreadsheet, it makes sense to raise prices. And it also makes sense to only sell certain skews and really only cater to a higher end customer. I think the cost of capital has gone up so much that a lot of the people that, you know, we're hoping to crowd out the space or we create a lot of noise in the space have started to be churned out. And I think that is allowing the people that are serious business owners that have more durable revenue continue to operate in Napa Valley. And they needed to evolve their offering as well. I totally agree with the observation that many people imitated other playbooks that maybe weren't true to their brand. I think it is nice to see that diversity come back into the space. Yeah. Likewise. Let's talk about buying the business that you were working at and running. How was that acquisition journey for you? It was long. We went through a couple years of negotiation. We have three locations here in the valley, downtown Napa, Yantville, and St. Helena. And our downtown Napa location is both a bike rental space and a true locals bike shop. And so I did not want to own the bike shop component of the business. So we had a little bit of back and forth about that in the acquisition phase. And so I am not owner of Napa Valley bike shop. They'll announce what's happening with that portion of the business. But I truly just took the tours and rental side of the business and all three locations, which hearing the wine train in the background is a great opportunity for something I do want to bring up that's exciting for us. Our current downtown location is over on Pearl Street. And we'll continue to operate there throughout the month of November and December. But we're going to be moving to the wine train in the new year. January 1st, 2026. And we're really, really excited about that partnership. So our downtown location will be on site at the wine train. Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah. I think the marriage of that wine train station in your bike rental business will be a wonderful opportunity for both you and in the wine train team. Yeah. I'm excited. The wine train team Nathan is amazing. And then, you know, Noble House, I think that our values really align. And I think that it's just going to be awesome for both of us. I'm super excited. Yeah. I do think Nathan's a wonderful human. When you think about the things that you aspire to do going forward, relocating the bike rental business to the train stations, one of them, what are some of the other things you're going to lean into in the the years ahead? We're really just going to lean into authenticity and hospitality. We're going to continue to offer an amazing experience to our guests who come to visit us. We have such an incredible team. And everyone in our business truly loves what they do. And everything from the guides to the mechanics guides to the mechanics. I mean, we we really are happy to come to work. We all really like what we do. And we're just going to continue moving forward and creating a space that's a positive place to work and a positive place to come. And how are you thinking about developing partnerships with hotels and other venues that could use bikes on property to make a better consumer experience? Sure. Yeah. I would love to create a bike lease program with local hotels. That's something that's definitely her business over the years is all of almost all of the hotels in the valley have a small fleet of their own bikes now. And so we're not getting that business. People are jumping on a bike really quickly at their hotel and getting their ride in and they're not coming to us. So I would love to be the provider of the bicycles to the properties. Let's talk a little bit about that St. Alina location. So that's a location that's not been a part of the business historically. How are you thinking about up Valley? We're really excited to be up Valley. And our St. Alina location is it's on site at Charles Krueger Winery. And why is that significant? That's significant because the portion of the Napa Valley Vine Trail, which is a paved multiuse path here in the valley exists right at the front driveway of Charles Krueger. And it spans 8.2 miles up to Calistoga. It's paved car free and it is absolutely gorgeous. It is quintessential Napa Vineyard views. It's absolutely beautiful. So you can grab a bike from us, take a right out of the driveway and ride straight up the Vine Trail. That portion of the Vine Trail is some of my favorite section of the Vine Trail. You pass Brasswood. One of my common things is when I get a spare morning, I'll do that exact same trail, hit Brasswood, get a coffee and go all the way to Calistoga and back. It's a fantastic way to spend a morning. When you think about the trends that are going to be to your benefit in 2026, what are some of the things that you just really want to double down on? I think that there are more people that are interested in coming to the valley and not just drinking wine. And so I think that we have a really good advantage being a company that of course visiting wineries and wine tasting is a huge part of what we're doing or a vehicle to get people there. But I think that we also allow guests coming here who want us maybe a break from that or to skip that part. They've got us as a resource and we can do so much. We can carry experiences that go to a private farm in Yantville. We can do culinary experiences. It doesn't just have to be wine-facing. I think we're going to see an adjustment of trends here in the valley reasons that people come to visit us and it's not just going to be about wine. It's going to be about sustainability. It's going to be about agriculture. It's going to be about culinary, etc. I'm really excited about that. I'm so excited to see what you do with the business that you just acquired. What are some of the ways that people can follow your work or find Napa Valley Bike Tours online? Sure. So NapaValleyBikeTours.com is the best way to find us. Can email us info at Napa Valley Bike Tours. Our phone number is on our website. We are there seven days a week from 9 to 530. You can always contact a real person. My self included, I answer the phones. And our Instagram handle is Napa Valley Bike Tours. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And congrats again on acquiring this business. All right. Thanks, Andrew. Bye. Cheers. Thanks for listening to Wine Country Business. For more insights and video clips, make sure to follow the show on Instagram @WineCountry. If you found value in today's conversation, please follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your pods. And brief thank you to our publisher Wine Country Media and a special thanks to Napa Valley Car Club for letting us record at the barn. Their members only club in downtown Napa. I'm Andrew Allison. Thanks for joining me and we'll see you in the next episode.