" I love what I do and I do it with passion, Every day, we’ re selling liquor and wine, and I get to tell people what tastes like what and what pairs with what.” – Gundeep“ G” Singh, owner
" I love what I do and I do it with passion, Every day, we’ re selling liquor and wine, and I get to tell people what tastes like what and what pairs with what.” – Gundeep“ G” Singh, owner
mand because it’ s organic,” he adds. Other brands doing well at the Baltimore location include
Clase Azul, Tequila Ocho and Lalo.
Another key trend that Singh points to is social media marketing, which has only grown in size of importance for Socialize.
“ When we started off, we did radio, print and email marketing,” Singh recalls.“ Post-pandemic, I realized that all of that is old-school. Now we’ re more focused on SEO and how your website can better pop up when people search online. And we’ re doing pay-per-click adds on Instagram and TikTok.”
“ We’ re getting better at understanding the algorithms of Instagram and TikTok,” he adds.“ I hired a whole team to handle social media and am always learning more about social media with them.” This includes getting better with timing.“ If you want more views, there’ s a particular time and day to post,” Singh says.“ If we’ re posting about a party today, then post at 5 p. m. that day, because that’ s when folks are getting off work and opening their phones to see where the party is that night.”
Like many other social media-savvy businesses, Socialize has had success by bringing in influencers. In exchange for comped drinks or other forms of payment, these popular content creators with huge digital followings will post about what’ s happening at the store.
“ We’ ve found that that trend has been the most effective in terms of engaging with the public,” Singh says.“ We’ ve had people walk in and say,‘ I just saw your espresso martini on Instagram. Could you make it for me?’”
Singh’ s social media team is always reaching out to influencers with invitations and offers. And once the local community of content creators sees their peers posting about your place, they will likely reach out and ask if they can come in for videos themselves. Singh says that it was tough getting influencers in at first, but once a few posted about Socialize, then all the rest became interested as well.
“ Now we have influencers asking us when they can come in,” he adds.
WHAT’ S NEXT?
Singh remains focused and excited on how he can expand and improve the customer experiences at his family’ s business.“ I love what I do and I do it with passion,” he says.“ Every day, we’ re selling liquor and wine, and I get to tell people what tastes like what and what pairs with what.”
At the original location in Baltimore, he’ s imagining a hookah lounge built into the back.“ Hookah has become very popular,” Singh says.“ Honestly, I think that hookah and vaping have taken away from our business a little bit. So I’ d like our place to become a go-to place for people” who also enjoy those hobbies.
In Towson, Singh’ s next vision is to expand the bar and lounge into a nightclub. I visited this site myself last year during our magazine’ s 2025 Beverage Alcohol Retailers Conference in Maryland. Singh’ s took us through the backrooms, the potential future nightclub, concrete rooms still used as storage while construction begins. The future was before us. Listening to a visionary talk, with his genuine passion for business expansion and customer experience, it’ s easy to believe that anything is possible. www. beveragedynamics. com Spring 2026 • Beverage Dynamics 19