Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Opupinski And Ed Buffington.
Hi Mike Opupinski, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Mike Okupinski moved to Greenville in 2000 and took a job with the city’s geographic information systems department, where he’d spend the next decade mapping the city by day. Off the clock, he was building something else: a self-taught education in craft beer.
By 2008, the idea had a name and a rough shape. Mike was traveling constantly for his job at the time, and it was his wife who finally told him to dust off the business plan and do something with it. Within a week, he found himself at a party, mentioning the idea out loud to his friend Ed Buffington. Ed called the next morning, wanting to make the idea a reality.
Ed didn’t know beer the way Mike did, but he knew wine, and he knew how to build a brand. The two had been friends for years, part of the same tight circle of couples who spent most weekends together anyway. What started as a conversation at a party became a shared business plan, refined together with their wives at the kitchen table: a beer and wine shop with a full bar, where customers could shop a curated retail selection or pull up a seat and drink by the glass.
They opened on Wade Hampton, in the North Main neighborhood, at a moment when Greenville had almost nothing for the craft beer drinker. The original Community Tap opened its doors on July 1, 2010, and for the first year and a half, it was just the two of them behind the counter pouring growlers, because at the time, that was still how most small breweries got their beer to market.
Over the years, the business grew the way the city did. The Commons location followed in November 2019, and Travelers Rest came later in April 2022. What started as a bottle shop began pouring by the glass, building out a robust wine program, and adding food service.
Today, The Community Tap is a cornerstone of Greenville’s beverage scene. Mike and Ed still hand-pick every product themselves—a detail that hasn’t changed since the two of them were the only ones behind the counter.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Like most business owners, Mike and Ed cite COVID-19 as the biggest disruption they’ve faced. The pandemic hit the food and beverage industry especially hard. Despite the challenges, they are proud to have kept every staff member employed, pivoted to Zoom beer and wine tastings, and partnered with local restaurants so customers could pick up beer and wine paired with takeout.
Beyond COVID-19, Mike and Ed have watched plenty of competitors come and go over the years, with new stores opening, some succeeding, and some eventually closing. They currently describe the beer world as being in its fourth downturn. A wave of breweries opened around the same time, and now many of those same breweries are closing. It’s a cycle they’ve seen before.
They’ve also had to stay attuned to shifting consumer tastes. What people wanted to drink 10 years ago isn’t what people want now. Through all of it, their approach has been to stay focused on their own business rather than react to what everyone else is doing, trusting the original foundation they built the company on: a community-first, quality-driven approach.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Ask Mike and Ed what they’re proudest of, and neither one leads with the beer or the wine. They lead with the neighborhood.
Sixteen years in, The Community Tap has become part of the fabric of Greenville—the kind of place people point newcomers toward when asked what to do in town. Mike and Ed have both said it’s the kind of thing you can’t put a dollar sign on, but it’s the thing they’re most proud of building.
On the product side, what sets them apart is a simple, consistent philosophy: bring in the best beer and wine they can find, and stay ahead of where the market is headed rather than settle into what’s comfortable. That’s meant paying close attention to what customers are asking for, and being willing to adjust before a trend fully takes hold rather than after.
Come in for a pour, and there’s a good chance you’ll leave with more than that—a recommendation for where to eat, what else to check out in town, or just a great conversation and a sense of community.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
For Mike and Ed, it comes back to the people on both ends of the business.
They don’t think of beer and wine as a commodity. Every bottle on the shelf represents someone, whether a farmer, a winemaker, or a brewer. Mike and Ed have built real relationships with many of the people who make what they sell.
That trust runs in both directions. Producers trust Mike and Ed to represent their brand well, and customers trust them to point toward something worth drinking. It’s a connection they take seriously, knowing that what’s on the shelf isn’t coming from a big corporation, but from real people they know.
That full circle, with community and relationships on both the front end and the back end, is what they say matters most.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thecommunitytap.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/communitytap/
- Other: https://commonsgvl.com/
Image Credits
The Community Tap
