Wine Bars and other on premise programs

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Comment by TeddyFrank on May 6, 2008 at 6:19pm

I've been following Terroir for a while now. I'm amazed they were able to fit into that space. I used to go to Bikes By George, the bike shop that used to occupy that space and it was so small that you had to leave your bike outside, and walk in with only you and maybe two other of the guys who owned the place.
Lemme tell you, as someone who's currently shoving a wine bar into a former printing room, I have to say that the concept is great since you can repurpose space that would otherwise not become restaurants.

Comment by tom merle on April 9, 2008 at 9:11pm

I'll start by quoting from an article in today's New York Times written by Eric Asimov:

No question about it, wine bars are no longer what they used to be. Throughout the restaurant-saturated precincts of New York, wine bars have been proliferating like latter-day Starbucks, purveying their wines by the glass and simple bites with typically homespun charms. . . many, ... have stepped it up, forging identities that distinguish them from the more mundane masses.. . . the good ones always offer something to intrigue even the most jaded palate.

[Twenty five years ago], Bartenders tended to preface each glass with extended lectures on winemaking techniques or soil content.... They seemed aimed more at teaching customers that wine was gravely important rather than satisfying them.

It wasn’t until the late 1990s that a different kind of wine bar took root in New York. Relaxed, unpretentious Italian places like ’Ino on Bedford Street and Bar Veloce and Il Posto Accanto in the East Village familiarized New Yorkers to words like panini, tramezzini and quartino.

There was no proselytizing, no lectures. They simply served wine and let customers set the pace.

The low-key vibe and the easy prices made these places appealing to consumers regardless of their wine orientation, especially to women who wanted to avoid the testosterone-driven pickup scene at bars. That is still true today.

But far more crucial to the latest wave of wine bar openings has been the soaring cost of opening a restaurant in New York City....

“Economics is the overriding factor,” said Mr. Grieco, an owner of Hearth and Insieme, who just opened Terroir on East 12th Street. “A wine bar can fit into a footprint that a restaurant couldn’t. The cost of real estate, the cost of labor, all the equipment that you need to get a restaurant up and going: a wine bar allows an aspiring restaurateur entree without breaking the bank.”

[Rafael Mateo's] vision was based on the small Barcelona bars he fell in love with years ago, specializing in, as he put it, “beautiful sliced ham, beautiful cheese and great wine.”...

“I think we’ve become a lot more subversive in our application of knowledge to guests,” said [Mr. Greico], with more enthusiasm than can be contained in Terroir’s 500 square feet. Plans for T-shirts of wine heroes, wine bingo and wine merit badges spill out in rapid succession. “If you don’t offer education I don’t think you’re a wine bar,” he said.