BE HERE. MEOW.

The Cellar Cats

HOLLY EVANS-WHITE
OWNER & SR CORK DORK

To make up for being a trouble maker as a kid, Holly Evans-White became a problem solver.

For her sixteenth birthday she became a vegetarian, so her meat-cooking mother gifted Holly an apron and invited her to learn to cook for herself.

Holly did.

By the age of eighteen Holly was not only a little too-well fed but found a way to make money at it and had several successful large-scale catering events under her belt. At age 28, having moved to Sonoma, knowing nothing about wine but needing a job, Holly landed a position in a winery tasting room. Holly went on to work in Sonoma, Napa, and Willamette Valley wineries for over thirty years.

One of the problems with wine and the wine business is that both are constantly evolving and changing. Wine "expertise" therefore requires copious quantities of live "study" (wine tasting and wine drinking and more tasting). Staying up to date, keeping up with the changes in the wine business, experimenting with which wines pair best with which foods is a noble job that requires constant and relentless food and wine consumption.

When not occupied with drinking and eating and drinking, Holly occasionally oversees Cellar Cat's operations and management, marketing, finances, and other such minor wine bar matters. Holly strives to appropriately delegate any hard or challenging problems to others so that she can spend all available moments sampling and sipping as much wine as possible so that no Cellar Cat guest will ever be disappointed when spending time Being Here Meow in Kitsap County's most ecclectic and interesting wine bar and shop.

Holly's motto; Practice makes purrrrfect.

JIM EVANS-WHITE
OWNER & WINE HOST

Jim Evans-White loves food.

And wine.

Born in Montgomery Alabama to a seven-course-dinner kind of mother, Jim was born to eat. Blessed with a miraculous metabolism, Jim has been able for over three decades of adulthood to eat everything not nailed down while sitting at computers at his real job in Oakland California, and still not gain weight. Perhaps it's the action of all that cava consumed during off hours.

When in 2001 life-long best buddies Holly and Greg opened Cellar Cat Cafe in Glen Ellen California, Jim, without quitting his day job, joined in, acting as host to amuse himself on "days off".

From 2001 Jim has been "smitten with the kitten" (as proclaimed by a food critic in love with Holly, Jim and Greg's first venture in to the litter box two decades ago in Sonoma County).

In the summer of 2015 Jim boldly retired from the lifetime security and stability of the Oakland day-job and relocated with Holly and Greg to Albany Oregon, and then again in 2023 to Gig Harbor, to continue making the Cellar Cat magic in Kingston, WA.

GREG BURTT
OWNER & OPERATIONS
"Hub Cat" - metal artist

Born and raised in Southern California, co-owner Greg Burtt is a Left Coast kind of guy. A lifelong mechanic (meeting Cellar Cat co-owner Jim White back in The Day at a motorcycle shop they both worked at), Greg is Mr. Make-it, Mr. Fix-it, Mr. Maintain-it. Greg's attention to detail has made him the MVP wherever he has worked whether as a line cook at a restaurant or as a metal fabricator or an inventory specialist.

When it comes to food and wine, Greg has been a dishwasher, prep cook, line cook, worked in food manufacturing at Amy's Kitchen all the way to owning his own restaurants in Sonoma County and Willamette Valley. Greg worked in production for mighty Sutter Home winery and Eola Hills winery, wearing wine-saturated boots and jeans and has also dried off to represent fine wineries in world class museums and art gallery events. Most notably, Greg has consumed more Chardonnay - his favorite varietal - than any human being on earth.

Cellar Cat guests can rest assured that, under Greg's exacting and watchful gaze, Cellar Cat purrs like a kitten from the front of the house to the back. Greg takes care of his guests as if they were his own family. Because they are.

Greg spends his spare time with the loves of his life, his two rescue pups; Kaz, the 115 pound German Shepherd/Husky mix and wee Bonnie dog, an 80 pound rescue from the streets of Juarez, Mexico.

Cats are currently, necessarily, left to the imagination.