Gavin Newsom - Business Career

Business Career

Newsom's first job out of college was selling podiatric orthotics. He later worked for real estate firm Shorenstein & Company, where he worked as an assistant and performed a range of jobs that included cleaning bathrooms and removing asbestos. He earned US$18,000 per year. Newsom also earned a real estate license.

On May 14, 1991, Newsom and his investors created the company PlumpJack Associates L.P. In 1992, the group started the PlumpJack Wine Shop on Fillmore Street in San Francisco with the financial help of his family friend Gordon Getty. PlumpJack was the name of an opera written by Getty, who invested in 10 of Newsom's 11 businesses. Getty told the San Francisco Chronicle that he treated Newsom like a son and invested in his first business venture because of that relationship. According to Getty, later business investments were because of "the success of the first." At the PlumpJack Cafe, Newsom gave a monthly $50 gift certificate to employees whose business ideas failed because according to him in 1997: "There can be no success without failure."

One of Newsom's early interactions with government occurred when Newsom resisted the San Francisco Health Department requirement to install a sink at his PlumpJack Wines. The Health Department argued that wine was a food. The department required the store to install a $27,000 sink in the carpeted wine shop on the grounds that the shop needed the sink for a mop. When Newsom was later appointed Supervisor, he told the San Francisco Examiner: "That's the kind of bureaucratic malaise I'm going to be working through."

The business grew to an enterprise with over 700 employees. The PlumpJack Cafe Partners L.P. opened the PlumpJack Cafe, also on Fillmore Street, in 1993. Between 1993 and 2000, Newsom and his investors opened several other businesses that included the PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn with a PlumpJack Cafe (1994), the Napa Valley winery (1995), the Balboa Cafe Bar and Grill (1995), the PlumpJack Development Fund L.P. (1996), the MatrixFillmore Bar (1998), PlumpJack Wines shop Noe Valley branch (1999), PlumpJackSport retail clothing (2000), and a second Balboa Cafe at Squaw Valley (2000). Newsom's investments included five restaurants and two retail clothing stores. Newsom's annual income was greater than $429,000 from 1996 to 2001. In 2002, his business holdings were valued at more than $6.9 million.

Newsom sold his share of his San Francisco businesses when he became mayor in 2004. He maintained his ownership in the PlumpJack companies outside San Francisco that included the PlumpJack Winery in Oakville, California, new PlumpJack-owned Cade Winery in Angwin, California and the PlumpJack Squaw Valley Inn. He is currently the president in absentia of Airelle Wines Inc., which is connected to the PlumpJack Winery in Napa County. Newsom earned between $141,000 and $251,000 in 2007 from his business interests. In February 2006 he paid $2,350,000 for his residence in the Russian Hill neighborhood, which he put on the market in April 2009 for $2,995,000.