Dante Tarabelsi was halfway through a mechanical engineering degree when he literally got a taste of what working for his family business could be like.

On a trip with his parents to Napa Valley, California, for his 21st birthday, “I was drinking wine overlooking the fog running into the valley and said: ‘How do I keep doing this? This is the lifestyle I want.’”

At the time, his parents – Riccardo and Marybeth Tarabelsi – were working through business planning for what would become their fourth business venture – Maribella Ristorante – joining their original bar and restaurant, R Wine Bar & Kitchen, and subsequent expansions Brix Wine Bar and Vespa Catering, under the umbrella of Vinyahd Restaurant Group.

For their oldest son, now director of wine for the company, it became the next step in an upbringing where family and business continually blended.

“He ended up helping us with Brix, which had opened shortly before that and then passed the level one sommelier test and really saw himself working in this industry,” Riccardo Tarabelsi said.

Look around the Tarabelsi family’s businesses – which now number five, thanks to newly opened Trio Jazz Club – and the family tree is entwined throughout the establishments.

Dante’s younger brother Berent is wrapping up his business administration degree at the University of Sioux Falls and preparing to serve as director of marketing – when he’s not working at R Wine Bar or coordinating catering with his wife, Molli, a first-year teacher in the Sioux Falls School District.

Youngest brother, Jaxon, is a computer science, math and data science major in his junior year at USF who works as a part-time server across the restaurants and has focused lately on Trio Jazz Club.

Then there’s Marybeth’s sister, Jackie Freese, who serves as lead host at Maribella. Her son Chance is a bartender and server at R Wine Bar along with his wife, Kira. Her son Hank is a sommelier who manages Brix Wine Bar, and her daughter, Margeaux, is a sommelier and server at Maribella. The company’s director of operations, Jason Oren, is Marybeth’s cousin-in-law and, most recently, Marybeth’s niece and her boyfriend moved to Sioux Falls, and he is now the expediter at Maribella who organizes food before it goes to the dining room.

“Our guests rave about when they see multiple family members here all the time and see us interacting with each other,” Riccardo said.

The Tarabelsi family “is an amazing example of extended family working together across generations,” said Stephanie Larscheid, executive director of the Prairie Family Business Association.

“We’re excited to begin connecting with them and introducing them to resources that will help their businesses continue to thrive as they look toward the future.”

Becoming a family business

Riccardo and Marybeth’s path to a life together started, of all things, with drawing blood.

Both were pursuing careers in health care in the Boston area and ended up with jobs as students working the same 6 a.m. shift at an area hospital in phlebotomy.

His future wife’s first words to him when they met were: “Hi, I’m Marybeth. I have a boyfriend,’” Riccardo enjoys retelling.

“When the first person you see every morning is each other, you become pretty good friends, so we were best friends for 2 1/2 years who would go on double dates together with other people. During our entire friendship, we would describe each other’s ideal soulmate.”

It all led up to a proposal in 1996, followed by a move to Houston, where she was a nurse and he worked on traumatic brain injury research.

The birth of Marybeth’s nephew Hank ultimately led them back to her hometown of Sioux Falls.

“I was in tears about missing the birth, and Riccardo said, ‘I’ve got a solution; why don’t we just move to Sioux Falls?’” she said. “My parents and sister lived here, but I didn’t think he’d actually want to move to Sioux Falls.”

Instead, “I loved the idea,” he said.

Riccardo ultimately worked as a mental health counselor at Sanford Health, and Marybeth was a registered nurse in pediatrics. Then, his schedule changed to 12-hour shifts, and she was put on bedrest before giving birth to Dante.

“I was used to working multiple jobs through college, so I just said I’d get a second job,” he said.

Credit his sister-in-law Jackie for what happened next.

“She said: ‘You’re Italian. You should go work at that Italian restaurant in town called Spezia,’” he said.

Soon, Riccardo began dreading the workweek and anticipating the weekend when he’d work at the restaurant.

“It was lively. People were happy to be there. The relationships were amazing,” he said. “I have guests who have followed me from there for 25 years.”

His career in hospitality then led him to Westward Ho Country Club where he served as general manager and to Fernson Brewing Co. where he became vice president of sales and marketing.

“It was a startup – a brand no one had heard of,” he said. “So after seeing that brand go from literally zero to distributing Fernson beer on tap everywhere, Marybeth and I talked and said, ‘Why aren’t we doing this for our family?’”

Recipe for success

While the thought of a wine bar had been in Riccardo’s head for two decades at that point, the vision came together one night as he and Marybeth peered through the windows at the darkened vacant space on East Eighth Street in downtown Sioux Falls that would become R Wine Bar.

“We had looked up and down Phillips and Main and nothing really resonated until we saw everything inside here – even tables and chairs and how everything was set up and that it was turnkey,” Riccardo said.

They opened in 2018.

“People sometimes think it’s just me, and they don’t see how much Marybeth does behind the scenes,” Riccardo said. “The first two years R was open, she was downstairs in the dish room – out of sight but integral to keeping the restaurant functioning and saving the family money as a startup. We did what we had to do until we could hire a dishwasher.”

At the time, their sons were in middle school and high school. Dante worked as a server while Berent assisted the bartender and Jaxon assisted with dishwashing.

“There’s a reason from day one we’ve always said we’ll be open to all ages,” Marybeth said. “It’s because we want our own kids here, not just to work but to enjoy the atmosphere.”

Marybeth had grown up with a mother who ran an in-home day care, “so that’s where she learned her style of hospitality,” Riccardo said. “I learned mine from being Italian.”

As the businesses grew, their roles evolved. Riccardo and Marybeth share the finance role, and she oversees human resources.

“She is very much everybody’s mother,” Riccardo said. “She is very direct and deals with things head-on and gets to the root of the problem and is incredible at it.”

The Tarabelsi businesses have cultivated a culture where “our philosophy is to treat every employee as if they’re irreplaceable,” he added. “I worked for other companies where owners would tell staff they could be replaced tomorrow. And that wasn’t the culture we wanted. Can we replace positions? Yes. But we can’t replace our people and the unique qualities they bring to our business.”

Recently, the Tarabelsis were introduced by friends on both sides of South Dakota to the Prairie Family Business Association. Kristen Thorkelson, a married-in with family business Lloyd Cos., “was a massive advocate for it,” Dante said, as was Sandra McNeely, founder and president of Abbey Legacy in Rapid City, who gifted the family with a complimentary membership for their first year.

“We’ve gotten a lot of welcoming communication, and we realized we know a lot of the families involved,” Riccardo said. “We think there are great networking opportunities, and we can provide venues for that to happen too.”

So far, Dante has become involved in an Affinity Peer Group, and “its’ going great,” he said.

“I really like my group. Most of us have not been with our family businesses very long, and we come from very different fields, but there’s so much overlap with being in a family business. In some cases, I can already see ways we’re further ahead than others, but I also see how we can improve things relationship-wise from those who have already sorted that out.”

Sunday Fundays, looking ahead

On Sunday, all the Tarabelsi restaurants are closed, and the extended family – along with many employees – heads to Riccardo and Marybeth’s house in central Sioux Falls for what they’ve dubbed “Sunday Funday.”

“It’s a chance for us to dedicate one day as family day, when we try not to talk about work,” Riccardo said. “Everyone comes over. There’s yard games, board games, music, good drinks and great company.”

Otherwise, they acknowledge business and family regularly comingle throughout the week.

“Our family is really good about understanding that family business can be super-fun, but it can be tricky,” Berent said. “You’re trying not to hurt the relationships, although you still have to address situations as they come up. But everyone understands that if we talk at work, it’s a work thing and I still love you and I’ll see you Sunday. And there haven’t been many cases of that.”

As for what the future could look like, all three Tarabelsi sons are in their early 20s and interested in seeing the business grow and evolve – which became apparent at a recent family meeting as they considered the opportunity to take over available space between their two concepts at Washington Square in downtown Sioux Falls.

“As a family, we just brainstormed. We said, this is our inner circle, and we have this opportunity, so what can we do?” Riccardo said. “And as a family, we all basically came to the same conclusion that it would be our brand to open a jazz club. So it was a really cool moment for me and Marybeth to see these kids investing in what our next opportunity should be as a family.”

They’ll continue to make big decisions as a group, he said.

“We know we’re not going to be as actively involved forever, and we’re looking to the next generation to really be invested in the concepts and be as passionate as we are,” Riccardo said.

Still, he believes that transition likely is years in the future.

“I’ve looked ahead 10, 15, 20 years, and it’s great knowing we’re going to overlap a lot, which is really cool,” Riccardo said. “We try to lead by example every day.”

Learn more about why Prairie Family Business Association’s Affinity Peer Groups – the program Dante referenced – are consistently rated as one of the most valuable pieces of a membership here.

Know a next-generation family business leader? Read more here about PFBA’s upcoming Next Gen Retreat being held in October in the Black Hills.