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3CUPS Management Bios

Lex Alexander

Managing Partner

Lex Alexander

Lex Alexander has spent a lot of his life inside a grocery store. Lex got his start in the natural food industry in a workers’ collective in southern California. In 1981 he and his wife Ann founded Wellspring Grocery in Durham, North Carolina. In 1986 he moved Wellspring to larger quarters, pioneering the concept of the supermarket-sized format natural foods store, a trend that would come to dominate natural foods retailing. Lex opened a second Wellspring in Chapel Hill in 1990, and in 1991 merged the two stores with Whole Foods Market, and took his place on Whole Foods’ Executive Team.

 

From 1991 to 2001 Lex was Vice President for Product Development and The Food Guy @ WFM. Lex is credited by WFM leadership and industry insiders as having a major impact at Whole Foods by infusing his passion and knowledge about high quality foods into the company culture and developing food products and programs that clearly positioned Whole Foods as the best grocery store in town. During his tenure on the WFM Executive Team the company went public, grew from 12 to 144 stores and achieved 2 billion in annual sales.

 
Today Lex is the managing partner of 3CUPS, a wine, coffee, tea retail shop in Chapel Hill, N.C. using an information-rich merchant approach to selling. 3CUPS is pioneering the farm-to-table model in products that come from distant countries and maintains the promise that none of our wine, coffee, or tea comes from industrial agriculture or factory production.

 

Lex earned his bachelor’s degree at Wake Forest University where he was a member of the 1974 NCAA Championship Golf Team. Active in the arts community, Lex has served on the Board of Directors for the American Dance Festival and was awarded the North Carolina Governor’s Business Award in the Arts and Humanities. In 1989 he was chosen as North Carolina’s Small Business Person of the year. In 2002 Lex was honored by his peers with the Cliff Adler Heart in Business Award in recognition of his contributions to the growth and success of the natural foods industry.

 
Lex and Ann have been married since 1975 and have two daughters, Emily (1982) and Gillian (1985) and live in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Jay Murrie

Partner

Jay Murrie joined 3CUPS in 2008 as equity partner and Wine Director.  Jay manages all elements of the 3CUPS wine selection and special events.

 

From 2000 to 2008, Jay worked at A Southern Season, NC's largest wine retailer, serving as wine buyer and manager for the last 5 years.  Jay is also the Beverage Director at Lantern Restaurant in Chapel Hill, a job he started in 2006.

 

Click Here to Read Jay Murrie... On Wine Writing