Portland, Maine It all came to Johanna Corman after four nights of tossing and turning.
Her husband of nearly 17 years, Steve, had just been laid off from his teaching job of 19 years right during April school break in 2013, and they had two children in high school.
After 19 years of teaching, he asked her what he should do next.
Johanna had been a teacher, but she was also an adventurous spirit, willing to jump at opportunities to run the family apple farm and move to Maine's Cliff Island a couple months after seeing a "for sale" sign at the island's only store and café.
Johanna woke up on that fifth morning and realized the answer to their problems.
"I had this whole vision," she said. "A bar with bartenders, and they're mixing and muddling and shaking. But there's no alcohol. It's seltzer-based, but they're using really good, healthy ingredients.
"I love old fashioned ingredients, like bitters and tonics and shrubs and syrups. I just could see the whole thing in my brain."
A dream based on trust
Steve and Johanna Corman, co-owners of Vena's Fizz House
To know Steve Corman is to know how much he loves and trusts Johanna. Having followed her to Cliff Island ten years ago, where they ran Pearls Seaside Market & Cafe for six years, Steve agreed to give it a shot.
In the course of their marriage, "I've come to totally trust certain aspects of what she's saying, what she's doing," he said. "She's incredibly creative."
"And if we're going do it, we're going to go all in," he said.
Neither had a business plan, but by day's end, they had found a realtor and an empty corner bar with space for a retail space in Portland's hip Old Port neighborhood.
And two days later, Steve went to the bank for a home equity loan based on Steve still having a job -- which he did until June. (They were approved a few weeks later.)
Vena's Fizz House, named after Johanna's temperance-minded great grandmother, was born on July 10, 2013 with just 10 drinks on the menu and cans and bottles of seltzer as the base.
No beer distributor would sell them a carbon dioxide hookup without them also buying soda. Within a couple weeks, they bought the equipment online, watched YouTube videos to learn about the installation, and hooked it up themselves.
