By Kate Poss

Special to The Record

Paying it forward just as they were given a hand up eight years ago, the owners of the popular Taproom at Bayview Corner are selling their business to a young woman who has worked with them over the past six years.

Damien and Tiffany Cortez first opened their pub in 2014, which they envisioned to be a South Whidbey blend of the television show “Cheers” and their favorite Seattle neighborhood pubs. Whidbey Island Local Lending, a local nonprofit organization, helped the couple finance start-up costs.

Now the couple is selling their business to their employee and current general manager, Francesca Coenen-Winer, whose ownership begins in September.

“It is right to pass it on to her,” Damien Cortez said. “We’ll carry the loan for Francesca the same way we were helped.”

Coenen-Winer first visited the Taproom as a patron in her 20s. A friend who was working there at the time suggested she apply for a job. She didn’t realize then that she would end up owning the place.

“I started in 2016 as a server and cook and bartender,” Coenen Winer recalled. “Since then, I’ve been all things all along. I’ve been the general manager since last May.”

From the start, the now 32-year-old was a natural fit at the Taproom. Patrons enjoyed her welcoming banter and found her cheeky humor appealing.

“Francesca is just fun,” recalled Bert Guenther, a regular patron at the Taproom. “She knows what she’s doing and lightens up the whole place.”

It took a few forays off-island for Coenen-Winer to decide the Taproom was where she was meant to be.

“I realized the island community is my home,” she said, recalling her move to the island as a sixth grader with her mother Fiona Coenen-Winer in 2002, and the connections she’s made over the past 20 years. “It’s the reason I’ve come back over and over.”

She lived in Austin, Texas for a while, running a folk art gallery. Returning to the island, Coenen Winer and her mother opened a store in Langley, exquisitely designed by them, and filled with their life long travel treasures — Old Soul Bazaar. Most recently Coenen-Winer moved to Sebastopol, California, and had plans to remodel a school bus and go traveling. Returning in 2021 to help her mother pack for a move to Estonia, Coenen-Winer returned to the Taproom. Then this past May, Damien and Tiffany Cortez asked her to assume the role of general manager.

“We had a manager in place that did not work out,” Tiffany Cortez recalled. “We called Francesca, who had worked on and off our team. There wasn’t anyone else with her skills.”

These skills include scheduling staff, provisioning food and drink, booking musical talent, working as cook, server and bartender, plus the dozens of other tasks needed to run a busy family gathering place. And she does this while making all of it look natural and fun.

With the change of ownership, Coenen-Winer has plans to expand the menu with Clinton’s Organic Farm School farm-to-table produce. Décor changes will include items from her collection of curated treasures along with a rotating gallery for local artists.

When Damien and Tiffany Cortez moved off the island last May, where they are “looking to live the dream in the West,” they wanted to leave their business in good hands.

“The Taproom was our baby, our blood, sweat and tears,” Damien Cortez said. “Tiffany worked behind the bar till the day she went into labor. As we’ve come back to visit, it feels more and more that it was the right thing karmically to pass it on to Francesca. She’s a member of the community. She’ll get to put her spin on it now.”

“My head is still reeling from all of it,” Coenen-Winer added. “I have big gratitude to Damien and Tiffany for trusting me with the future of the Taproom. People asked if I’m stressed out because it will be so much more work. Yet, it’s work I’ve been doing all along. I look forward to bringing more of my self to the place.”

The reason why she’s confident going forward is due to the quality people that she’s worked with over the years.

“I couldn’t do any of this without my staff,” Coenen-Winer said.

To learn more about the Taproom at Bayview Corner, visit taproombayviewcorner.com.