Almost open for business... Decanter Restaurant and Wine Lounge

For the last couple months I’ve been working with an old friend and manager of mine on putting together a wine list and preparing us to open a restaurant and wine lounge in south Dallas (Oak Cliff to be specific for all the Dallas folk). The name, Decanter. The concept, to provide the locals with an affordable and pleasant wine adventure, with good food to boot. No longer will Dallas residents have to be subjected to the x3, x4 and up to x5 markup traditionally seen at places. Not to be seen and absent: a trophy wine list that you open up and longingly look at without any hope of ever buying a bottle… until you win the lottery. I’ve convinced the owners and investors that we should “Build it and they will come”. And by that I mean the following: Have low prices, times 2 markup at most, with many bottles we’re featuring between 30 and 40 percent margin. Have a fun and inviting list for wine enthusiasts, both with and without experience. The price range of the list is concentrated at and between $20-$50, with a reserve page of wines tucked away in the back of the list from $50-$110. We’re trying to provide an environment for those people that are of the lifestyle of eating out most days and nights. Instead of making it that destination place for you and your friends to come and eat on a special occasion, we’d like it to be affordable for everyday visiting. Anyhow, if you’re a Dallas resident or planning to be in Dallas anytime soon, you’re invited to come and check us out. We should be opening our doors in 2 weeks… just waiting on our TABC license. I’ll post more updates as I find out. Cheers.

Bravo [cheers.gif]





and good luck!

Sweet. We live in the southern part of Irving, and anything close by would be great.

Best of luck in your new business!

Good luck, it sounds fantastic! Pictures when you are up and running :slight_smile:

And the wait continues for this little beloved piece of paper, aka liquor license to arrive. There will be plenty of pics to come, I can assure you of that. And also, this just in… a little something we’re putting together for our guests: wine lockers.
These will be first come, first serve and FREE for whoever wants to make use of them.
We’re not technically supposed to let guests bring in their own bottles of wine (we’re in a “dry” area), but I will be checking into making some exceptions.
However, I would like to offer people the opportunity to buy wine through us and store it for them with a nominal fee or percentage/ margin very similar to that of retail. I figure that I can’t have a wine list that covers everyones favorite bottle of wine and if they must have something they really want, we can get it for them and store it. I assure myself that they’ll be coming in for dinner and drinks and I think it’ll be a nice way to show some appreciation for those that want to frequent our restaurant often.
Any thoughts on this?

I am hip to having a wine locker and purchasing through the restaurant…assuming the juice available is what we like.

Regarding what is available I am currently working with 18 distributors and a few bottle shops that have class B distribution. I would like to be able to provide in some sort of format a comprehensive list of what all is available, but I do not think that this would be practical. Said list would have over 30k items and keeping that current would be a nightmare. What I do envision is the following: either getting an email or a phone call from customers saying, “Hey JP, can you get X, Y, Z for me/us?”, which would open up a dialogue concerning how many bottles, price, availability, etc. Bottom line is, I want to have the wines that, you, the customer wants to drink, either off my list or from your locker.

I hope you’re affiliated with these folks…

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The exact name “Decanter Restaurant and Wine Lounge” is trademarked by a company in CA…

Updates?

+1

Waiting on the gaddamn liquor license… we’re been paying rent on the place for 3 months now and we’re just waiting on a piece of paper. Since the vote went through here in Dallas county, about 3k plus people put in applications ontop of the other half million people already in the system wanting weekend passes and licences for Super Bowl in Feb. Don’t know when we’re getting ours, but should be soon… I hope. Will keep all posted. Can’t wait to sip on my first glass of Lopez de Heredia white ($13 BTG) while at the bar, smiling that we’re open.

I wish you the best of luck and speed on the liquor license. Texas has some of the most “unusual” licencing requirements.

Heh… peculiar indeed. I was going to elaborate a little more in my last post about this “vote” and get into the details of Prop 1 and 2, but figured TX liquor laws are so messed up, I’d have to give a background description to what all is involved. The mere thought of doing so gives me a headache… ah crap! There it is again. Thanks though, for the warm wishes. Will keep people posted and yes, there will be pics!

We contacted the “Texas Alcohol People” in regards to sales in their state and how to go about it. The short version:

  1. We have to have a physical presence in a “wet” county. (written in the laws as “wet” county.)
  2. Then we can file for the license.
  3. Our request for a license will be placed on the “next” ballot for a vote by the citizens of the county for approval.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. When I lived in Whacko, (Waco), in 1964/65. they had “blue laws” and I had to work my way through groups of people picketing outside stores that were open on of all days, Sunday.

JP,
Good luck with Decanter, I wish you guys all the best. Dallas needed just such a place and I think you guys can be very successful, especially in Oak Cliff. When I make it back to town, I look forward to stopping by!
[cheers.gif]

JP,

Has the Health Department already completed it’s inspection? We were visited by the “new” no nonsense inspector today. It was immediately obvious that SHE would locate every violation and fortunately she didn’t. Still, our worst score ever. (Still got an A). Having this happen, I got to thinking that if Texass is anything like Califorku, dealing with getting the liquor license will be a piece of cake compared to getting a health certificate.

GOOD LUCK

We’re good to go with that. They were very happy with what they’ve seen so far. They want to pay us a visit again soon once we get the food, wine, liquor, beer, etc set up and stored away to give us a final run through. Nice people to deal with actually and have been tremendously helpful.

Update: we should have our license next week and we’ll be set to open sometime during the week after Thanksgiving! Woot!