About Us

The BroBasket was founded on one simple idea

At The BroBasket We Set Out to Create THE Best Gifts for Men

In 2014, The BroBasket started off with the simple idea "If Women get flowers, what do men get? ... how about a bucket of beer!"

The BroBasket started out with this true story, way back in 2013, starring a fellow classmate in our CSUCI MBA program… it went something like this;

My fiance (now husband) sent me a bouquet of flowers and I leapt with glee!  That evening as I thanked him for the gesture I asked “Well why don’t I send you some flowers at work to repay the favor?”.  He laughed and respectfully declined but retorted with, “I don’t want flowers, but you can send me a bucket of beer instead!”  After searching the internet and quickly realizing I couldn’t send him a bucket of beer, I realized what a cool concept that would be!

Fast Facts About The BroBasket

Where we've been and where we are going

Our customer support is available Monday to Friday: 8am-8:30pm.Average answer time: 24h
El Jefe - Patron Tequila Sampler
01

The Seed Was Planted

And there it was, the seed had been planted for what would eventually become TheBroBasket.com. Our Entrepreneurship class overwhelmingly chose it as the business we would start in our classroom.  As a whole, the class worked on the various aspect of the business plan; some wrote lengthy marketing ideas, others ran tons of theoretical sales numbers and financial figures, while others came up with a logo and even some prototypes.  At the end of the class the four Vice Presidents stood in front of a panel of real life venture capitalists in hopes of getting the idea funded and turning it into an actual business!  After all, as our Professor Doug Lane once said “Anyone can have an idea, but getting an MBA is about turning that idea into a business”.

02

From Classroom Idea to a Real Business

Unfortunately we did not get funded, our little idea still had a long way to go, but the whole class got A’s and we left with a sense of accomplishment; we had fun and really worked together on something bigger than ourselves.  After class concluded, the original four VP’s; Mike, Pete, Kenneth, & James (three of which are the current owners), and a handful of other students really believed in the idea and thought it could be turned into an actual business.  So we continued to meet regularly and work on all the aspects of the business plan that needed more attention.  Over time a few class member’s fell off, but we vowed to give anyone that opted in a little piece of the company as an ode to the original class and their hard work.

When we finally had a more refined business plan in order (almost a year after the class had concluded), we set out to get the money to turn the idea into reality. We held another much more ‘real’ venture capital presentation.  We invited friends, family, members of our cohort, and of course, everyone that was in that Entrepreneurship class with us. This presentation netted us a few thousand dollars from a couple classmates. Not enough to launch the business, but it was a start and it gave us hope.

03

When the Rubber Hit the Road

After getting lackluster responses from many potential funding partners, and being turned down by a few banks for lines of credit or loans, we realized if we were going to make it happen we would have to pull it out of our own pockets.  So the original founders, with the help of some family, cobbled together enough money to get a location, licenses, some initial inventory, and most importantly, a website built.  We decided to bootstrap our business because we knew it was now or never if we were ever going to get The BroBasket off the ground. It took over a year and a half, tons of man hours, lots of coffee (and beer), and many delays, but on December 12th of 2014, in the middle of the Christmas rush for gifts, we launched TheBroBasket.com with high hopes and a uneasy feeling that we might not get any of that time or money back… but who cared by this point 

04

A Drastic Shift on Our Business Model

Originally we opened the business as a local gift basket delivery service, kinda like Edible Arrangements geared toward men, but drinkable arrangements (as we lovingly call them in our case).  We launched our website as our main portal for our local customers to order on, but then the strangest thing started to happen, we kept getting orders from all over the country!  We would refund these orders and sheepishly state that we unfortunately did not ship our gift baskets out of the area, but delivered them locally.  After a few months and many local advertising and promotional flops (as well as a severely lacking website) we quickly realized that local sales would not sustain the business, but since people kept ordering from all over, the light bulb went off!  With the help of an SBA backed loan from our local partners at Ventura County Credit Union, we shifted our business model.  We launched a new and improved website, started advertising our products nationally, came up with cool new ideas like Customize Your Own (our biggest seller), figured out how to safely ship our baskets, and bam, we were a full fledged eCommerce operation!

Gift basket from BroBasket with beer, popcorn, Ferrero Rocher chocolates, and glasses on a red plaid picnic blanket outdoors.
05

Happy Customers

Today we ship our BroBasket’s all over the country, with 1000’s upon 1000’s of happy customers served.  Even the male centric nature of our brand has not deterred some 1/3 of our gift recipients from being female (women love us too!).  It’s not that we just make some of the coolest gifts for guys out there (because we do), but that our customers love that they can send their friends and family their favorite alcohol in a custom gift basket on their special day, because what makes a better gift for any occasion other than booze?!

01

The Seed Was Planted

And there it was, the seed had been planted for what would eventually become TheBroBasket.com. Our Entrepreneurship class overwhelmingly chose it as the business we would start in our classroom.  As a whole, the class worked on the various aspect of the business plan; some wrote lengthy marketing ideas, others ran tons of theoretical sales numbers and financial figures, while others came up with a logo and even some prototypes.  At the end of the class the four Vice Presidents stood in front of a panel of real life venture capitalists in hopes of getting the idea funded and turning it into an actual business!  After all, as our Professor Doug Lane once said “Anyone can have an idea, but getting an MBA is about turning that idea into a business”.

02

From Classroom Idea to a Real Business

Unfortunately we did not get funded, our little idea still had a long way to go, but the whole class got A’s and we left with a sense of accomplishment; we had fun and really worked together on something bigger than ourselves.  After class concluded, the original four VP’s; Mike, Pete, Kenneth, & James (three of which are the current owners), and a handful of other students really believed in the idea and thought it could be turned into an actual business.  So we continued to meet regularly and work on all the aspects of the business plan that needed more attention.  Over time a few class member’s fell off, but we vowed to give anyone that opted in a little piece of the company as an ode to the original class and their hard work.

When we finally had a more refined business plan in order (almost a year after the class had concluded), we set out to get the money to turn the idea into reality. We held another much more ‘real’ venture capital presentation.  We invited friends, family, members of our cohort, and of course, everyone that was in that Entrepreneurship class with us. This presentation netted us a few thousand dollars from a couple classmates. Not enough to launch the business, but it was a start and it gave us hope.

03

When the Rubber Hit the Road

After getting lackluster responses from many potential funding partners, and being turned down by a few banks for lines of credit or loans, we realized if we were going to make it happen we would have to pull it out of our own pockets.  So the original founders, with the help of some family, cobbled together enough money to get a location, licenses, some initial inventory, and most importantly, a website built.  We decided to bootstrap our business because we knew it was now or never if we were ever going to get The BroBasket off the ground. It took over a year and a half, tons of man hours, lots of coffee (and beer), and many delays, but on December 12th of 2014, in the middle of the Christmas rush for gifts, we launched TheBroBasket.com with high hopes and a uneasy feeling that we might not get any of that time or money back… but who cared by this point 

04

A Drastic Shift on Our Business Model

Originally we opened the business as a local gift basket delivery service, kinda like Edible Arrangements geared toward men, but drinkable arrangements (as we lovingly call them in our case).  We launched our website as our main portal for our local customers to order on, but then the strangest thing started to happen, we kept getting orders from all over the country!  We would refund these orders and sheepishly state that we unfortunately did not ship our gift baskets out of the area, but delivered them locally.  After a few months and many local advertising and promotional flops (as well as a severely lacking website) we quickly realized that local sales would not sustain the business, but since people kept ordering from all over, the light bulb went off!  With the help of an SBA backed loan from our local partners at Ventura County Credit Union, we shifted our business model.  We launched a new and improved website, started advertising our products nationally, came up with cool new ideas like Customize Your Own (our biggest seller), figured out how to safely ship our baskets, and bam, we were a full fledged eCommerce operation!

05

Happy Customers

Today we ship our BroBasket’s all over the country, with 1000’s upon 1000’s of happy customers served.  Even the male centric nature of our brand has not deterred some 1/3 of our gift recipients from being female (women love us too!).  It’s not that we just make some of the coolest gifts for guys out there (because we do), but that our customers love that they can send their friends and family their favorite alcohol in a custom gift basket on their special day, because what makes a better gift for any occasion other than booze?!

El Jefe - Patron Tequila SamplerGift basket from BroBasket with beer, popcorn, Ferrero Rocher chocolates, and glasses on a red plaid picnic blanket outdoors.

Timeline

The BroBasket is founded - yay!

The BroBasket grows every year helping making peoples freaking days!

The BroBasket soars in popularity and we help people... 

send "Happy Brithdays!", "I Love You's!" "Merry Christmas!" Long Distance Hugs and many other much neededd long distance well wishes durring a time the country couldnt be together. 

The BroBasket is sold

Gift basket from BroBasket including cans of Guinness Draught beer next to bags of caramel and kettle corn popcorn on a wooden surface.

The new owners try breath new life into the business

They change the domain name (TheBroBasket.com becomes BroBasket.com), they change platfoms, they remove some popular baskets, try to appeal to a broader audience, but fail to capture the essenence of The BroBasket and popularity wanes. 

The interim owners file for bankrupcy

One of the original founders, James, buys, revives and relaunches the business

Not wanting  to see such an amazing business that has helped so many people send long distance well wishes over so many years go the way of the fax machine, he decided to take the business back and relaunch the business under its old name TheBroBasket.com with a dedcation to bringing back into The BroBasket our orginal commentment to creating the best gifts for Men and ensure all of our customers and their loved ones are nothing but stoked to receive a BroBasket.

Cheers!

James 

Co-Founder @ TheBroBasket.com 

Our Team

Meet the Awesome team that helps bring some of the best alcohol themed gift baskets around stright to your door.

Co-Founder

James Grasty

James was one of the original founders who launched BroBasket with two partners (Mike & Kenneth) he met in their MBA program, where the idea for BroBasket came to life.
After any interesting journey, he bought the BroBasket back in late 2024, becoming the owner once gain.

He's been in the gift-giving and beer, wine, and spirits industries since 2014, spending his time away from BroBasket in 21'-24' running an ecommerce marketing agency.

He loves going to the beach and travling with his wife and kids.

Warehouse Manager

Danely Cortez

Danely has been with The BroBasket since 2017, starting as a seasonal hire, then quickly becoming a full-time employee, to running the entire warehouse in a short matter of time.

She stayed on with The BroBasket after it was sold in 2021, leaving it for greener pastures a few years later.

Somehow how James was able to talk her into coming back and running the back of the house again for our relaunch right before Christmas of 2024, and we couldn't be happier that she is here.

She really is the queen of everything here, not only running our warehouse but still pulling up her sleeves to make customers baskets and get these awesome gift baskets out the door every day.

Warehouse Assistant

Tony Chavez

Tony has been with The BroBasket for years now and worked through the sale of the business all the way to when it closed due to bankruptcy (without warning to him) in early 2024.

We were stoked when we asked him to come back and work for us again, and he said yes. He even showed up to help us move out of our old warehouse.

Tony is great and can do just about anything in the back of the warehouse, from moving pallets of gift baskets to putting the finishing touches on engraved bottles.

Our Exclusive Marketing Agency

The Bev Connect

The Bev Connect helps us with all things marketing to help us connect with people near and far looking for the best alcohol themed gift baskets out there.

We dont just sell gift baskets

We love to give back

We offer a number of programs at The BroBasket aimed at giving back to the community at large in ways big and small.

We Support a Good Cause

We welcome donation requests from any charity and always try to contribute something to support good causes in our community and beyond.

We offer discounts for service members and essential workers

Yes! We're proud to offer special discounts for:

  • Military personnel
  • First responders
  • Healthcare workers
  • Teachers and students
  • Alumni from select schools
  • Clubs and organizations

We Offer a Scholarship

We do! The BroBasket offers a $1500 scholarship program for qualifying applicants. We believe in giving back to the community that has supported us.