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St. Helena, Sam’s General Store, Guinness Storehouse, Marina dining, Clementina, MORE

WORK • Wednesday Routine

Drive time

TRACY SWEENEY • founder & CEO • Tomorrow Cellars
Neighborhood you live in: St. Helena

It’s Wednesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I spend a lot of my time driving around Napa and Lodi, visiting our production teams, fulfillment partners, and calling on retailers and restaurants to spread the word about our non-alcoholic wines. Of course, gotta plug the category wherever my office on wheels takes me, so I added SIPZERO plates on my car (forgive the vineyard dust).

What’s on the agenda for today?
Early morning 2.5-mile power walk while listening to the Business of Drinks podcast. Through mid-morning: customer correspondence and order follow-up. Our first Tomorrow Red Blend vintage sold out, and there’s a lot of excitement about the release of our second. I’m also processing retail orders for Southern California and New York. Here in the Bay Area, you can find us at Bardessono Resort, Alila Napa Valley, Stanly Ranch/Auberge, Cavallo Point Lodge, and the Treehouse Hotel Silicon Valley.

The afternoon is for production and wine logistics activities: We’re bottling our 2025 Rhone Blanc in early April, so we’re finalizing all the details. Used my “mobile office” to deliver our labels to our local bottler so everything is staged and ready. After that, I’m back at my desk working on final decisions for our newest sparkling wine bottling in June.

Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
My midweek favorite is Cook St. Helena, amazing Northern Italian cuisine a few steps from our house. We love it because chef and owner Jude Wilmouth is there every night and touches every table. We also adore Farmstead’s great locally sourced farm to table menu, and for a great coffee, Sam’s General Store on Adams (order a large Sam’s Gold Latte for both a great caffeine fix AND a healthy dose of turmeric, ginger and Ashwagandh mushrooms).

How about a little leisure or culture?
My go-to spot to catch the latest indie film is the Cameo Cinema on Main Street in St. Helena. It was founded in 1913 and is one of California’s oldest continuously operated single-screen movie theaters.

Any weekend getaways?
The best thing about living in Napa Valley is we’re a three hour drive from so many great weekend destinations. Family favorites are the Monterey Peninsula and Carmel. We’ve been members of the Monterey Bay Aquarium since it opened in 1984, and our favorite place for a glass of wine (traditional or non-alcoholic) is sitting in front of the fire pits at The Inn at Spanish Bay waiting for its bagpiper to play at sunset. And to the northeast, we love the Lake Tahoe mountain area. Our kids learned to ski at Heavenly and we love the whole Tahoe basin, winter or summer.

What was your last great vacation?
We visited Ireland with our extended family this past October. My husband’s family is from a small town on the West Coast of Ireland, Lahinch. Treat yourself with a stay at Sheen Falls Lodge on the River Sheen in Kenmare, County Kerry. It’s a throwback to Irish country living, complete with fly fishing, falconry, and beautiful hiking. The Falls Restaurant onsite is outstanding. Other favorites: World Heritage Site Newgrange, a Stone Age (Neolithic) monument in the Boyne Valley and the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin. The Fitzwilliam Hotel Dublin is great and in a perfect location for dining, shopping and nightlife. We dined at Sole, an easy walk, and enjoyed incredible seafood with exemplary service.

What store or service do you always recommend?
All on Main Street in St. Helena:

• Sportago: great outdoor clothing and gear

• ACRES home+garden: fabulous gifts, home decor, and silk flowers

• Carter and Co: gorgeous pottery and service ware by potter and sculptor Richard Carter

• Studio Findings: perfect for home, table, and gifts

Where are you donating your time or money?
I’m on the board of the Festival Napa Valley Arts and Education programs, which harness the power of music to create a thriving, healthy, and engaged community in the Bay Area and beyond.

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WORK LINKS: Inside Cognition, the SF startup racing to build an AI software engineer • AMC comedy The Audacity takes on Bay Area work culture • Tech execs embrace the ‘tiny team’ mentality • AI startups are making cash-heavy offers • ‘Most of us are one event away from leaving our job’.

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ASK FOUND

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RESTAURANTS • The Nines

Restaurants, Marina

FOUND’s 9 favorite restaurants in the neighborhood. See also: Chinatown, Castro, Inner Sunset, Noe Valley, Inner Richmond, Outer Richmond.

• A16 (Chestnut St), Southern Italian stalwart w/ excellent pizza, seasonal pastas, reserve