Exploring Life & Business with Constantine Savvides and Richard Peters of Stoa Wine Bar & Market

Today we’d like to introduce you to Constantine Savvides and Richard Peters.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
We actually met in the parking lot of a silent meditation retreat in Joshua Tree more than a decade ago. Not long after, we opened The Hive together with the goal of creating the happiest restaurant on earth — a place that radiated positivity and brought people together. The Hive became a colorful, playful brand that was all about joy and community, and it taught us a lot about the power of restaurants to shape how people feel.
With Stoa, we’re carrying that same spirit into a new avenue. Where The Hive expressed joy through energy and color, Stoa expresses it through contemplation, appreciation, and savoring the moment. The food and provisions we serve are meant to ground people in presence and community. It’s not just something to eat or drink, but a way of experiencing connection. One of the most fulfilling aspects so far has been watching neighbors become friends.
We didn’t want to just open another restaurant. We wanted to create a space that feels timeless, where simplicity, community, and craft come first. Stoa blends the convivial spirit of a neighborhood wine bar with the depth of philosophy and the easy pleasure of the dolce vita lifestyle. It’s a natural evolution of what we’ve been building since The Hive: creating spaces that uplift the spirit, connect people, and remind us of what we truly value.
Our journey here has been less about following trends and more about building something with soul, something that reflects the way we want to live and what we believe hospitality should feel like.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Would we really want it to be a smooth road? On one side of our pizza boxes we’ve printed the phrase Amor Fati. It means to love fate — not just to endure it or withstand it, but to fully embrace it. We’ve learned to see obstacles not as setbacks but as catalysts. Real growth doesn’t come from the easy path, it comes from facing the obstacles in front of you. On the other side, you find yourself shaped into who you were meant to become.
With The Hive, we spent over a decade learning how hard it is to build and scale restaurants. We faced the challenges every restaurateur knows: staffing, operations, and the pressure to grow without losing the heart of what makes a place special. Those years gave us the resilience and clarity we needed for this next chapter.
With Stoa, the struggles have taken a different shape. Opening a wine bar in today’s climate has meant navigating rising costs, supply chain issues, and the notoriously difficult process of permitting in Los Angeles. And beyond the logistics, there’s a deeper vulnerability in creating a place that carries so much of who we are and what we believe. That comes with its own kind of weight.
But we’ve come to welcome those challenges. Each one has forced us to sharpen the vision, to double down on simplicity, community, and craft. Without the struggles, Stoa might have been just another wine bar. With them, it feels forged, intentional, and alive — a space with true soul.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Stoa Wine Bar & Market?
Stoa is a coastal Italian wine bar and market built around the idea of intentional living. By day it is a sunlit market and deli offering artisanal sandwiches, seasonal salads, antipasti, and a carefully curated selection of Alpine cheeses, premium charcuterie, small-production wines, and provisions like olive oil, chocolates, and tinned fish. By night, Stoa transforms into an intimate wine bar alive with conversation, with a menu that balances comfort and refinement. Highlights for lunch include the chicken cutlet and fennel slaw sandwich (Centurion), the jambon, brie, and truffle cream baguette (le philosophe). For dinner, the spice-roasted beets with whipped ricotta and feta, our pancetta-laced spicy vodka pizza, and the delicate meatballs enriched with lardo and beef tallow have quickly become neighborhood favorites.
The name comes from the ancient Stoa Poikile, the painted porch of Athens where philosophers like Zeno gathered to reflect on virtue, nature, and how to live well. That spirit is present in everything we do. Stoa is not only about food and drink, it is about creating a space that reminds people of the value of presence and connection. The design reflects that philosophy with natural textures, warm light, and Mediterranean-inspired details that make the space feel timeless, communal, and deeply human.
A major inspiration for us comes from those magical evenings spent with friends, when the table is crowded with many bottles of wine and conversation flows late into the night. In those moments we feel enriched, not just from what we ate and drank, but from the kinship and ideas shared. Stoa is our attempt to capture that feeling and offer it to our community.
One of the Stoic concepts that guides us is oikeiosis, the idea that our nature is to form connections, beginning with ourselves and extending outward to family, community, and ultimately all of humanity. We feel that in our immediate Marina neighborhood, where Stoa has quickly become a local gathering place. And we feel it in the global community we are tied to through every product we bring in. When someone enjoys a wedge of Moliterno, for example, they are not just tasting cheese, they are connected to the Sardinian shepherd who made it and to a tradition passed down for generations.
That is what makes Stoa special to us. It is not only a place to eat and drink, it is a reminder that we are all connected. To our neighbors, to artisans and farmers across the world, and to the rituals that have always brought people together. Whether someone is grabbing a picnic basket for the beach, picking up a bottle of wine and provisions on the way home, or settling in for an evening of conversation, Stoa is a place where those connections come alive.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Risk has always been part of our lives, both in and out of business. For me (Constantine), as an amateur alpinist, risk is something I have learned to embrace rather than avoid. Every climb carries uncertainty, and every uncertainty is just a shadow of death. On the mountain you learn that by leaning into that reality, not running from it, you can push through the terror and earn a kind of ataraxia, a calmness and freedom that comes only after facing risk head on.
That same mindset carries into how we approach Stoa. Restaurants are always a gamble, but with Stoa the greater risk was not just financial, it was conceptual. We set out to create a European-style wine bar infused with Stoic philosophy. The question was whether people would connect with that or find the philosophical undertone unnecessary. Would they welcome an idea-driven space, or would they just want pizza and wine without the context?
We chose to lean into the risk, because that is where the soul of Stoa lives. There are nods to philosophy woven throughout the experience: the name itself, our “Eudaimonia Hour” in place of happy hour, our use of oikeiosis as a guiding idea of connection, and the stoic quotes on our menu and pizza boxes. We also bring philosophy into the room through playful touches like our Philosopher in Residence program, where on certain nights guests can order guided conversations from a menu of timeless questions. We also place a question card on each tables to spark meaningful dialogue. Even the design of the space reflects the philosophy, pared back and intentional, with room for conversation to unfold.
In the end, risk is the only path toward building something alive. By embracing uncertainty, we have created something that reflects who we are and what we believe, and that is what makes it meaningful.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stoawinebar.com
• Instagram: @stoawinebar

Image Credits
Elli Lauren