El Carnicero served its last meal on Cinco de Mayo, with Eric Williams leaving the property on a high note after more than a decade. But the space won’t sit idle for long. Dan Deagan and Jackie Ramey, who also run the nearby Lakewood Truck Park (among other spots), will open Wine Dive (16918 Detroit Ave.) in early July.
Ramey says her goal is to upend assumptions about dive bars and wine.
“Dan and I love going to dive bars – and honestly the shittier the better,” she says. “But I like to drink wine, and at a dive bar that means the little bottles of Sutter Home or a regular bottle that’s been open for six weeks and tastes like vinegar.”
Wine Dive isn’t setting out to be one of those high-low concepts people are going on about, but rather a low-low concept with great wine. Guests can expect 20 wines by the glass, twice that in bottles, plus classic cocktails and beer. Ramey plans to revive the happy hour tradition of truly affordable martinis and old fashioneds, which will be dished up alongside honest dive-bar vibes.
“We like making places that we would like to go to and we just hope that other people will want to go to them too,” says Ramey, who is also partnering with Laura Fischer on the project.
To keep things lively, there will be a full roster of nightly promotions like Monday steak night, taco Tuesday, Wednesday wing night and two-buck shuck Thursday. Some events will incorporate live music, like a name-that-tune trivia show backed by a live band or Sunday sauce night with a Rat Pack-style act.
Wine Dive will open at 11 a.m. daily and 10 a.m. on weekends. On Friday and Saturday nights, there will be a late-night brunch menu that rolls until 2 a.m.
Normally, when a new operator moves in, job one is cleaning up the mess the previous one left behind. Not so with Eric Williams, says Deagan, adding that he inherited “the cleanest kitchen I’ve ever seen.” He, Ramey and Fischer will spend the next couple months “diving the joint up” by adding things like a jukebox, darts, Golden Tee, Pop-a-Shot, Keno and pull-tab tickets.
“He’s a hard act to follow for sure, but we’re excited about bringing something unique to Lakewood,” Deagan says. “We just want to continue to build up that area.”
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