Bio

Joshua Ratliff is a Certified Project Manager, a member of the Guild of Master Sommeliers and proud native Hoosier. He is a 25 year veteran in the hospitality industry with a insatiable drive to inspire and enhance the hoosier hospitality legacy.

While he is currently a managing partner with a large restaurant group, he has previously lead as the Director of Hospitality and Guest Experience for Newfields (Indianapolis Museum of Art), he created integrated hospitality concepts with institutional programing like Winterlights.

Ratliff has designed and opened twelve new hospitality concepts in the past decade including West Fork Whiskey Westfield, Mash House, Stave Bar, Turner’s Bar, The Beer Garden at Newfields, LUME cafe, and a half dozen pop-up concepts tied to municipal or institutional programming.

Currently Ratliff works with the Chamber of Commerce TIME program, helping minority entrepreneurs get started, and optimize their hospitality businesses, and has served on the Indianapolis Food Council Advisory Board and Ivy Tech’s State Hospitality Advisory Board.

From a young age, Ratliff has been intrigued by unfamiliar cultures, big events, and anything that involves gathering around a table. From his first job as a busboy, and through his 25-year career, Ratliff has learned virtues of the trade- empathy, connection, and ritual. His professional passions are rooted in a desire to elevate the role good food, wine, and service plays in everyone's life. Apart from these, in wine classes and tastings, Ratliff champions the beverage as a powerful lens through which to view various subjects. He loves how grapes’ names can tell the story of the world wars, how ripe German grapes can speak to climate change, and how simple questions like ‘what makes red wine red?’ can re-inspire childlike wonder.

Ratliff lives in northwest Indianapolis with his family and enjoys Ocean World, his 2-year old girl’s favorite restaurant.