Merlot and behold – Mandy pours her heart into dream

Front of House Supervisor Ashton Fiedorczyk, Owner and General Manager Amanda Atler and Chef John Howard sit during a lunch meeting at Mandy’s Wine Bar on Aug. 13, 2025. [Monica D. Spencer]

If there’s any moment Amanda Atler will cherish for the rest of her life, it’s opening day of her dream wine bar.

She barely slept the night before. That September afternoon — between the ribbon cutting, the crowd standing in the sun, and striking open a bottle of sparkling wine with a saber — one memory stands out.

Atler was holding a tray of complimentary prosecco samples near the entrance when she got momentarily cornered.

“There were so many people,” she recalled. “There were so many people, it was amazing.”

In that moment, she not only saw how a once-distant dream of welcoming the community into her space had come to life, but also felt the pure joy that came with it.

“I was standing there looking out over all the people who were happy and excited to be there. They were with families and friends. It was this snapshot in time and I remember thinking, ‘OK, we’re here. We’re doing this right,’” she said.

That day marked the public debut of Mandy’s Wine Bar, tucked away in a cluster of business suites and community services along Smith-Enke Road.

In the year since its grand opening, the wine bar not only brought a more sophisticated vibe to Maricopa — a city most people only know for being at least a 30-minute drive from Phoenix and home to plenty of fast food options — but also quickly became a local hidden gem.

Dreaming of a different life
Mandy’s Personal Selections

Being a restaurateur wasn’t always Atler’s plan.

She spent nearly two decades in corporate sales and marketing at Boeing, but she always dreamed of something different. Travel is what ultimately changed her path.

“I traveled quite a bit for work and would always try to take the opportunity to take a couple extra personal travel days,” Atler said. “I started my wine education journey that way. It came from years of working with people all over the world and experiencing the food and wine in these beautiful regions.”

In 2019, Atler read The Big Five for Life, a best-selling personal development book by John Strelecky that explores finding purpose and meaning by focusing on five life goals.

What would make her life fulfilling after years in the corporate world? She thought back on her travels, the food, the wine and the entrepreneurs in her family. That’s when it clicked.

“I started thinking, what would I want my life to be like? How do I want to contribute to the community? How do I give back and mentor young people and share the knowledge from those who’ve mentored me and helped me along my career path,” Atler said. “My work experiences, traveling and education with wine, wanting to bring people together and solving a need for the community, is how the whole concept and idea of establishing a wine bar grew together.”

Chef John Howard, Owner Amanda Atler and Front of House Supervisor Ashton Fiedorczyk on Aug. 13, 2025. [Monica D. Spencer]
Finding the name

From the start, she wanted the wine bar to have a neighborhood feel.

“Originally, I was going to use the Italian last name in my family, Gravina. However, I didn’t want it to be seen as solely an Italian restaurant,” Atler said.

It was a conversation with a childhood best friend that led to the name Mandy’s.

“I was chatting with my friend Stephen about the wine bar and the concept and the name, and he just said simply to me, ‘Why don’t you call it Mandy’s? That is you. You are Mandy at the core,’” she said.

The name didn’t come to her at first because it was a childhood nickname that never quite went away.

“Around second grade, I decided that my name was going to be Amanda. It was grown-up. But I still had this core group of family and friends who continued to call me Mandy,” she said.

“Then I realized calling it Mandy’s was the act of inviting the community into that inner circle.”

Amanda Atler, owner of Mandy’s Wine Bar, stands with a glass of red wine on Aug. 7, 2025. [Monica D. Spencer]
‘I’m meant to do this’

A year later, Atler said that despite challenges and tough days that often come with running her own business — and a restaurant at that — she knows she made the right choice.

“I have never once woken up and thought, ‘Oh no, I made a mistake,’ or wished I was back in my old career. Not once. I know in my heart this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” she said.

Feeling at home at the start of each workday certainly adds to that confidence, as does watching the wine bar grow to include a seasonal menu, a retail shop, live music and upcoming wine club events and tasting dinners.

But just as important is her belief in Mandy’s success from day one.

“I did the hard work and planning that took about five years prior to opening. I believed in myself from its conception and always stayed positive this will be a success. That feeling every day of knowing that it’s up to me to be successful is what I wanted and craved in my previous career,” she said.

“This is how I know that I’m meant to do this. That success is up to me, and I get to choose it. That’s really powerful.”

Global Tastes – Many Wine Bar

You can make reservations on the website Mandy’s Wine Bar, and read more about Mandy’s here.

Read about all the restaurants in Maricopa in the 2025 Restaurant Guide in your September issue of InMaricopa

The InMaricopa Restaurant Guide 2025 | 2026