“Our husbands are dreamers and entrepreneurs, and they just get wild hairs and throw ideas out and see what sticks,” Erica Brinker said of her husband Will and his brother Eric.

At the time, the Brinkers knew David Bartlett, then-owner of The Speckled Trout Cafe in downtown Blowing Rock. Eric and Will Brinker, brothers who were enthusiastic about craft beer, suggested that Bartlett could boost business by stocking the coolers with better beer.

That conversation took an unexpected turn: Bartlett was thinking about retirement. Would the Brinkers want to buy him out?

Soon, sisters-in-law Emily and Erica Brinker found themselves running a restaurant together, despite having never worked together formally before—and despite neither coming from the restaurant industry.

“There were definitely some things to learn about each other along the way,” Erica said. “Kind of a steep learning curve at first.”

The two families had already chosen the High Country as the place where they wanted to put down roots. Emily and Eric had lived in Raleigh, while Erica and Will were in Charlotte, but both families found themselves increasingly drawn to the mountains. By 2015, both had relocated to the area, bringing six children between them.

“We decided as our two families, we wanted to settle in the High Country, and this was going to be our forever home,” Emily said.

When they took over the cafe, the family transformed the space into The Speckled Trout Restaurant and Bottle Shop. They emphasized Appalachian cuisine made from scratch while building a craft beverage program around beer and cocktails.

From there, the business kept evolving.

The family began experimenting with fly-fishing retail inside the restaurant, initially giving the idea a small corner in the back. The concept caught on. When the property next door became available, they bought it, originally intending to use only part of the building themselves and lease the remainder.

That plan didn't last long.

“The more we got into the construction project, the more we were like, well, maybe we'll just rent out one side,” Emily said. Eventually, she said, “Will and Eric were just like, we're gonna do this full space.”

The result was Speckled Trout Outfitters, which combines retail, a bar, and guided outdoor experiences. Hospitality became the thread connecting what might otherwise seem like very different businesses.

“When it boils down to it, we're providing a service no matter how you look at it,” Emily said. “One's guided fishing. One's food and beverage.”

The family's hospitality portfolio expanded again through The Outpost, a boutique hotel in Damascus, Virginia. Eric and Emily started the hotel with a friend in 2021, and Will and Erica later bought into the business. Eventually, the group brought the hotel under the Speckled Trout umbrella.

Situated near several major trailheads, the 13-room hotel gave the family another way to combine hospitality and outdoor recreation. The Outfitters also developed a destination travel program with trips ranging from Arkansas to Argentina and Mexico.

“It truly is a destination,” Erica said. “The Outpost hotel, we can tie into the guided hiking, the guided fishing that we offer through the Outfitters, so it really works well in the whole ecosystem of the companies.”

That ecosystem has grown quickly, but running it as a family has required the Brinkers to learn how each person operates. Erica described herself as the slowest decision-maker of the group, while Eric and Will can move from an idea to execution at “warp speed.” Emily falls somewhere in between.

“I think we've worked really hard to learn how one another works,” Emily said.

The owners have used leadership training and personality assessments not as one-time exercises, but as ongoing tools for understanding how each person communicates and processes information. They have also established rules for themselves in meetings so their four strong personalities don't crowd out employees' ideas.

“We have a very open and honest policy,” Erica said. “We call it in the moment, and we really encourage others to do that.”

The children have grown up alongside the businesses, too. In the early years, the older kids worked in the restaurant. Sons have spent time washing dishes, while daughters and cousins have worked the host stand.

The family has weathered plenty together: the inherent risks of opening a restaurant, the complexities of working with relatives, a pandemic, a hurricane and continually rising food costs.

“I think that we did the two of the most challenging things that people [say] you should never do,’” Emily said. “One is opening a restaurant. The other is working with family.”

Early in the restaurant's life, a young server once warned Erica during a difficult period that the business was going to fail if things didn't change. Erica remembers feeling an immediate sense of clarity.

“It's not going to fail,” she told the employee. “We're really hard workers, and we're the Brinkers. This is not gonna fail.”

That persistence has since been paired with a more deliberate philosophy. In 2019, after a difficult incident at the restaurant, the owners realized they had never formally articulated the principles that were supposed to guide their company. They spent months developing a mission, vision and values.

Their vision is “to create exceptional experiences where individuals can belong to something greater than themselves.”

“We're trying to create that for not only the people who work with us and for us, but those that visit with us and the people that live around us in our community,” said Erica.

The goal, Emily said, is for people to leave with “feelings of genuine love and belonging” and the sense that someone has created an opportunity for them to make a lasting memory. That requires attention to details guests might never consciously notice, from the placement of flowers to the position of a rug.

“They don't see those individual details, but all those little things contribute to this overall feeling,’” Emily said. “It's not just trying to follow a rule to make something look perfect. It's because all the little things add up to this experience.”

For a family whose business started with a casual suggestion about putting craft beer in a cooler, those little things have added up to something much larger.