Maestro of event planning oversees two Rochester venues

Agathi Georgiou-Graham’s road to becoming a staple in the Rochester hospitality industry wasn’t one of glitz and glamour. In fact, she never planned on being an event planner and multi-venue owner. Rather, she realized in college that she had a natural talent when it came to working events and dealing with many moving parts.

Graham worked as a server at a country club during college, where she learned what it took to be a helpful team member from beginning to end of a function.

“I acquired skills along the way that helped to grow my confidence, and I realized after working all of these years in the hospitality industry that I was really good at it,” she says. “Some people know what they want to be from when they were young, but it wasn’t that way for me.”

A Chili native and resident to this day, Graham graduated from SUNY Buffalo State College in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in fashion merchandising. She thought fashion was her dream, but she didn’t want to move away from her tight-knit Greek family, and chasing a career in fashion in Rochester didn’t seem feasible.

Graham spent one year in the corporate world after undergrad and quickly recognized she was the type of person destined to be her own boss and make the rules.

“I was always a little unconventional on my thoughts and approaches on business,” says Graham. “So, I went back to school and got my master’s in communications” at the College at Brockport in 2011.

She chose to focus on communication because she felt it was vital to hone those skills if she was going to pursue work in the hospitality industry.

“Brockport was super-helpful because they helped mold my program to my interests, like developing my interpersonal skills and meeting people in the industry,” says Graham. “I felt like all the things I engulfed myself in before and during graduate school really gave my business a jump-start because I felt prepared to meet people, interact with new clients, plan their events and give them peace of mind.”

Right out of grad school, Graham began her first small business venture, an event planning business called Agathi & Co. She says that establishing herself and finding her niche in a saturated industry was tough at first. For the first five years, Graham primarily planned corporate functions, private parties and fundraising events. She dabbled in wedding planning, too.

Graham has helped plan private parties for the Keybank Rochester Fringe Festival, a massive function hosted by Greentopia called Dinner on the Bridge and a Guinness Book of World Records event for the Lilac Festival for the world’s biggest flower, just to name a few.

In the midst of working full time, Graham also worked as an adjunct professor at Brockport in the communications department from 2011 to 2015 as she gradually built her business.

“I think people assume that when you start a business everything is up and running immediately, but it’s not,” says Graham. “You are really struggling for the first few years of your business because you need to get your name out there and network.”

In 2016, Graham locked down her first event venue, Arbor at the Loft, located at 17 Pitkin St. above the former Hart’s Grocers. Graham met the building owner at one of the Dinner on the Bridge events she planned, and she knew the space was perfect the moment she laid her eyes on the vacant warehouse. Sure, it was covered in cobwebs and concrete debris, but she saw the potential with the building’s good bones, high ceilings and large windows. She signed on the dotted line in March 2016 and opened just four months later.

Two years later, Graham got the keys to a second venue, Arbor at the Port, located at the Port of Rochester. Graham officially had a second business as venue co-owner with her husband, Zach Graham, called Arbor Venues. Fun fact: The first wedding at Arbor at the Port was the Grahams’.

Arbor Venues can accommodate large and small parties and everything in between. From corporate parties to weddings to private events like showers and bar/bat mitzvahs, Arbor Venues can be tailored to any client’s needs. Arbor at the Loft can fit parties of up to 300 people, and Arbor at the Port up to 600.

Graham and her husband are currently on the hunt for a third venue in Rochester. On their team are four other full-time employees as well as 40 bartenders and servers who work events both at Arbor Venues and off-site locations.

Working closely with a spouse can be trying at times, but Graham says the two deliberately divvied up responsibilities to avoid overlap. Things can get dicey if they feel like they’re stepping on one another’s toes.

“Thankfully for us, Zach and I have opposite roles in the business, which is comforting because we don’t cross paths too much,” says Graham. “He’s polar opposite of me, so if I ever have a worry or concern I can run it by him and he’s my voice of reason and vice versa. He’s been such a huge asset.”

So far, Arbor Venues has hosted countless weddings, but Graham is lasered in on showing Rochester that these boutique, one-of-a-kind venues are excellent options for corporate events and private parties.

Eight years into her career, Graham has found that owning a business is all about trial and error and that the key to success is simple.

“It’s so simple that you think everybody can do it, but they can’t,” says Graham. “As long as you’re respectful of people and kind and understanding of people’s differences, worries, frustrations, then you’ll be a big success. My staff and myself continue to have that reputation of being kind, gracious, loving and accommodating, and that comes full-circle.”

Staying consistent when it comes to being kind and courteous translates to consistent business. Mistakes are inevitable but are not to be feared. With an open heart and open mind, everything can be recovered from, insists Graham.

“Everyone is going through a struggle of some sort,” she says. “You never know what people are going through, so you just have to be as positive and kind as possible because you might have just made their day with your attitude, and that’s how you want to be remembered.”

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