I've been emailing Total Wine asking, ok, begging, them to open a store here. So far, no go.
Total Wine is not worth your begging. Seriously. The people there are morons so don't even bother asking for a recommendation. My friend's daughter worked there and they give you notes to memorize. His daughter never drank a sip of wine but yet was telling people about hints of currant and smoke. We used to laught quite a bit about it.
The only good thing about them is there inventory. They have all the normal stuff and carry some of the more non-ordinary stuff so you don't have to go to several places.
The way I look it at it though in my area is that we have two or three fantastic wine stores Leukens in Dunedin and Ed's in Clearwater. We have B21 in Tarpon that carries awesome selections on booze. There are others as well. Hell, for the normal stuff we stock our bar with, I just go to SAMs Club. The prices are not better or worse and it's not worth chasing pennies. Total Wine is not cheaper or more expensive. For the good stuff, I'm not opposed going to a local shop and even placing an order if need be.
It is the Costco of liquor I guess, but it's really not all that special. The one thing I do go there for once a month for however is for their mini's. They have a fantastic selectionof mini's that I keep at my bar in my office. Can't be without that.
