BY TINA BENITEZ-EVES | High school friends from Cleveland, Phoebe Connell and Nora O’Malley decided to embark on something a little wild last year: opening a wine bar in the East Village. The area hardly lacks a good spot for wine, but trying to find a good wine on tap can be tricky.
Lois, at 98 Avenue C, which officially opens March 2, will serve up wines like most beer, from the keg. Only a handful of New York City establishments have tapped into this alternative to bottles, which can make tasting and trying new wines more cost efficient without the added cost of labels and shipping. Serving draft wine gives the co-owners a chance to offer customers wine by the glass starting at $4 to $10.
“We’re really trying to change the format of drinking,” said Connell.
Sandwiched between local beverage spots Alphabet City Wine Co., where O’Malley serves as store manager, and ABC Beer Co., where Connell is the food buyer and manager, the new 550-square-foot bar will truly complete the Avenue C trifecta of wine and beer establishments tailored to tasting and learning.
The approach with Lois is to leave any wine snobbery at the door. Patrons can toss out any wine drinking pretenses and just enjoy a different tasting experience. The wine bar will also give regular ABC Wine patrons the opportunity to have a laid-back experience. Here they can sit, relax and feel comfortable trying, tasting and learning about wine, whether a Sancerre, Vermentino or Vinho Verde. On any given night, 14 to 16 wines will be on tap at Lois.
“No matter your level of knowledge, there doesn’t need to be an air of pretension or an air of any insecurity to get exactly what you want at the end of the day,” O’Malley said. “We want to find that sweet spot between dictating what people are drinking and allowing them to discover a lot, and helping out in that process.”
Kegged wine is still a new phenomenon. Gotham Project brought it to the East Coast market back in 2009 with a Finger Lakes Riesling. O’Malley said that more producers are recognizing the benefits of kegging their wine, and New York distributors are realizing that there’s a demand for this alternative to bottled vino. Today, there are a few hundred producers kegging wines, including Napa’s Saintsbury, one of the wines that patrons will find on tap at Lois.
Like draft beers, wines will be switched out once they’ve tapped out, helping Connell and O’Malley rotate the selections on a regular basis.
Local ingredients will be used whenever possible for Lois’s menu, which will feature five to six small dishes, including assorted charcuterie and cheeses. These can be paired with the wines on tap, a cheddar-topped ribollita baked up French onion soup-style and house-made, seasonal pickled vegetables.
Connell received her master’s degree in food science at N.Y.U., and O’Malley first fell in love with wine while working a job in Italy after college.
Cheese is Connell’s personal background, and she will concentrate on more domestic selections to pair with wines. Most cheeses served at Lois will also be available for purchase next door at ABC Beer. Lois will serve two beers in addition to its wines to give people a little more variety when tasting.
“I hope and envision a lot of people trying a bunch of things,” Connell said, “and finding their favorites, discovering favorites or being surprised by what they thought were their favorites with friends, and not be afraid about how much it’s costing them.”
Connell and O’Malley took a modern and light approach to the interior decor and tapped interior designer Michael Groth to help bring that vision to light. The man behind another East Village establishment, The Eddy, plugged in his reclaimed aesthetic in Lois’s wood seating, lower ceilings, custom wood floors, poured concrete bar top and lighting fixtures. Keep an eye out for a 200-year-old kilim, a traditional Turkish rug, used as upholstery for the bar’s banquette.
Additional light fixtures were also crafted by Philadelphia designer Robert Ogden, who also constructed Lois’s tables, mirrors and reclaimed wood chairs.
Above all, Connell and O’Malley envision lots of laughter and a place where patrons can feel comfortable learning and talking about wine.
“We don’t want to be too lofty,” O’Malley said. “We’re not trying to start a movement or anything. We just want to serve wine the way that we want to drink it.”
“Beyoncé will definitely factor in,” said Connell, who added that their musical tastes are all over the place, from Motown to O’Malley’s love of Bruce Springsteen, and will be heard throughout the bar.
“It’s just simple and fun,” she said. “We wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t fun.”
