Heber City’s Spin Cafe owners Vincent and Joline Esposito closed the business’ doors Aug. 6 after 17 years of business.
This ended not only the couple’s time as restaurant owners in Heber Valley, but also what Joline characterized as a three-week retirement party that began after the couple announced the closure in a July 21 Facebook post.
“The next day, we start to see people pouring in,” Vincent said. “Joline said this to me a couple days into it: ‘My batteries were drained, and all of a sudden, they’re being recharged.'”
The strains of the industry and day-to-day tasks had started to weigh on the couple beginning with the COVID-19 pandemic, they explained.
Supply chain issues, difficulty finding employees, the industry’s physical demands and other stressors sparked conversations between the two as they began thinking about moving on from the business.
“At one point, you just turn to each other and say, you know, ‘Maybe we do need to do something else at this stage in our lives,” Joline recalled.
They expressed their appreciation for their staff — especially Veda Henderson, who they said was there from the first menu discussions to the last day they were open.
Before they were the owners of Spin Cafe, they were the owners of Campagna, a restaurant in Telluride, Colorado. After 13 years in the Centennial State, they decided it was time for a change of scenery.
They headed to Italy and, for a time, thought about staying.
“Once you live there for a couple of months, you start to realize it’s not what you want to do,” Vincent said. “It’s such a lovely country, but it’s a hard place to live.”
Having travelled to Park City during their time in Telluride, the couple were familiar with the location and happy with the outdoor recreational opportunities and other positive aspects the city provides. They moved there and started exploring the surrounding area.
“That’s when we really discovered Heber City,” Joline said. “We still wanted a small town.”
They moved to Heber City in 2004 and opened Spin Cafe in 2006 in the building that once hosted the Wagon Wheel Cafe, a restaurant that served the community for over 40 years.
Though they renovated the location, they chose the name “Spin Cafe” based on a neon wagon wheel sign that had once sat atop the business. It found its new home inside their restaurant.
“Keeping that was honoring their tradition,” Joline said. “There’s actually been a restaurant in this building since 1939.”
When they first opened in the location of the once beloved cafe, Joline said, many locals didn’t look too kindly toward the changed venue.
“In its day, it was like the place to come,” she said.
The couple would hear stories about the Wagon Wheel from former employees and patrons. Tales of monumental events reminded them of the legacy of the restaurant that once sat in their building.
Since their decision to close, they’ve heard many similar stories that took place within the life of Spin Cafe — a couple who became engaged there and have gone back every year, a large family that has celebrated every birthday around one of the restaurant’s tables, a baby born in 2006 whom they’ve seen grow up.
17 years, the couple explained, can feel very, very short.
“It’s been a very emotional last couple of weeks,” Joline said, “saying goodbye to all these wonderful people and hearing all their stories and frankly, for the first time, the two of us really understanding what we’ve done here.”
In Joline’s Facebook post, she said Chubby’s Neighborhood Cafe will occupy the building that once held Spin Cafe.