Page 12 - BusinessWest February 6, 2023

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BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
enson Hyde was a finan- cial advisor who wasn’t enthralled with the firm he was working for or the direction his career was headed in.
Bruce McAmis was a lawyer who would have preferred to be doing ... well, just about anything else.
That was years ago. In the inter- vening time, let’s just say their paths crossed (we’ll fill in the details later), and they are now co-authoring one of the more intriguing entrepreneurship stories unfolding in the region.
It’s called Provisions, a wine, cheese, and much-more store that now has three locations: in Northampton, where it all started, in Amherst, where the
plot thickened, and, most recently, Longmeadow, where it thickened even more, with the opening of a location in the Longmeadow Shops just before the holidays. They would have preferred to open sooner, but ... well, that’s part of the story.
“People like to talk about fine wine; we like to say we’re all about fun wine.”
Indeed, expansion has come quickly — more quickly than they anticipated when they first drafted a business plan that has been revised several times already — because opportunities have presented themselves. Seizing them hasn’t been easy, but they’re managing to take a promising concept and run with it, even in the middle of a pandem- ic, as we’ll see.
The concept? Hyde described it in a number of ways, but maybe this one works best: “people like to talk about fine wine; we like to say we’re all about fun wine.”
By that, he and McAmis meant wine that comes with stories, products produced in ways that resonate with
a younger audience that is embracing wine perhaps more than generations before them.
“Our focus is on smaller producers with a story,” Hyde said, “and being able to provide service on a personal level — when someone walks in the store and wants a recommendation, or wants to hear about where a wine came from, or wants a pairing suggestion and an idea
Grape Expectations
Benson Hyde and Bruce McAmis Make Provisions a Regional Success Story
12 FEBRUARY 6, 2023
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Bruce McAmis, left, and Benson Hyde, co-owners of Provisions