Check out Harlem Vintage
Wine store owners Eric Woods and Jai Jai Greenfield are spreading their love of wine in New York’s famed Harlem neighborhood.
By Robyn Moreno
After seven years of enjoying Harlem’s flourishing restaurant scene, but still finding himself unable to buy a decent bottle of wine in his neighborhood, Eric Woods decided to take matters into his own hands. Where Manhattan may have a wine store every five or six blocks, there wasn’t one near Woods for over forty blocks. “I was spending way too much time across town in Sherry-Lehmann’s,” says Woods. “As a consumer, it was a challenge to find and purchase wine in Harlem that I wanted to drink.”
So the ad exec-by-day and wineenthusiast-by-night teamed up with college pal Jai Jai Greenfield and together they decided to open up Harlem Vintage Wine Store, the area’s first boutique vintner. Thus began a two-year project that included creating an extensive business plan, dealing with tricky zoning laws, and tasting enough wine to last a lifetime.
“We carry up to 300 different labels,” explains Greenfield. “Tasting and deciding what wine people wanted to buy was an onerous endeavor. “But,” she adds with a smile, “we didn’t complain too much.”
Their hard work bore fruit this past October when the long-awaited store opened its doors on Frederick Douglas Avenue and 120th Street. “People were so ready for us,” recalls Woods. “We had a sign in the window that read ‘Wine Store Coming’ and people kept peeking in asking ‘When are you opening?’” READ MORE >>>
2235 Frederick Douglass Blvd.
at 121 Street
Harlem, NY 10027
CALL: 212-866-9463
Open 7 Days a Week
Monday – Saturday 11am-10pm
Sunday 12pm-9pm
10% Case Discount
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harlemfyi 