After a career working in corporate America, a honeymoon in Europe was enough to inspire founder and CEO of Con’ Olio Oils & Vinegars Tabatha Conarko and her late husband Jeff to start the oil and vinegar tasting bar in Austin in 2009.

The overview

Located in The Arboretum, the shop offers between 65 and 70 varieties of fresh extra virgin olive oils and vinegars on tap for customers to sample. Options for oils include oils made from a single variety of olive, multiple types of olives, specialty oils, or oils infused or fused with herbs, truffles, blood oranges and more.

For vinegars, the shop sells white and dark varieties of balsamic vinegar alongside specialties such as blackberry lemonade, serrano honey and others.

“We want people to feel like they’ve stepped into a little shop in Europe,” Conarko said.


What’s special about it?

People come to the shop for the freshness of the oil and its associated health benefits, Conarko said.

All oil and vinegar products at Con’ Olio are sent to a third-party lab in Australia to test for pesticides, freshness and nutritional content. Nutritional information tags are posted on every dispenser, including when the olives were crushed, which is the most important factor, Conarko said.

”If you don’t know the [crush date], you don’t know how long it’s been sitting on the shelf,” Conarko said. “There’s no health benefits. It goes rancid after 12 or 14 months.”


What else?

Con’ Olio also puts a lot of emphasis on teaching customers about the products they’re buying, Conarko said.

Staff from the shop guide customers through tastings and break down the differences between varieties and nutritional information.

“We’re an education shop,” Conarko said. “We want people to really understand extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and all the other goodies that we have in our store.”


Additionally, the shop holds in-person classes for oil and vinegar tastings and classes on how to cook with them. Virtual tastings are also available through their website with the purchase of a “Class in a Box,” a product developed during the pandemic that has caught the interest of Fortune 500 companies, Conarko said.

“It allowed us to sustain our business and our company went nationwide because of it,” Conarko said.

Alongside oils and vinegars, the shop also carries pasta, cheeses, meats, special varieties of wine, pestos and several other products. Conarko also imports specialty items from Europe during the holiday season.

What’s next?


Con’ Olio already has a second location in Bee Cave, but customers have often asked if the business has plans for expansion, Conarko said.

“I would love to eventually maybe expand to another location,” she said. “That's always on the horizon. But it has to make sense for me ... I want to be there for my kids.”

However, having been in The Arboretum location for 14 years, Conarko said she wants keep northern Austin as the home for her business.

“This location just continued to grow and grow and grow. We love our customers out here, I don't know if we'll ever move because our customers, I think, would be lost without us,” Conarko said.