“I’ve had many offers over the years, but I never really considered it until Will and I talked,” Lasher says.
Hollingsworth, Lasher and the rest of the Buildings and Food hospitality group have been hard at work converting the former Spotted Owl space (710 Jefferson Ave.) in Tremont, which closed this spring after nearly a decade, into the new home of an old friend. Against all odds, they have managed to conjure the spirit, mood and charm of that shadowy grotto.
“I love wine and we’ve never gotten to sell wine,” Hollingsworth says. “If I’m going to do a wine bar in this town, it would just be trying to be La Cave du Vin. So if I’m going to do a wine bar, it should be La Cave du Vin, and I can’t do it without Erich Lasher.”
Hollingsworth admits that the act involves more than a little sorcery – breathing new life into an expired brand at a different location – but with Lasher as managing partner, half the battle is won. What Hollingworth revered about the bar, which opened in 1994, was the unorthodox juxtaposition of extraordinary product and expertise delivered in a breezy, bohemian fashion.
“La Cave had an easy style of service with a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience that underpinned it,” Hollingsworth describes. “The beverage product was always world-class, the service was always world-class, but it felt like a Cleveland bar. La Cave was a place that could not exist anyplace else but this town.”
That spirit of preservation also is what underpins Buildings and Food. Spotted Owl was carved out of a 150-year-old religious publishing house, Good Company anchors a luxury loft complex in a former auto part manufacturing facility, Old 86 is set in a former 1930s speakeasy, and Prosperity Social Club comes by its Prohibition-Era vibe as honestly as any.
“We want to push things forward and be forward-looking, but more than anything, I want to protect what I love about this town,” adds Hollingsworth. “This town needed La Cave to come back more than it needed the Spotted Owl to stick around.”
La Cave du Vin will feature 24 wines by the glass and many more by the bottle. Those wines will always be changing.
“I have tasted 100s and 100s of wines over the past six months,” says Lasher. “I’m very proud of this list. We really do run the gamut as far as offering something for everybody.”
La Cave, adored as much for its self-serve beer coolers as it was the racks and racks of wine, will offer 10 drafts and more by the can and bottle.
“We will have a very nice selection of beer, but smaller,” Lasher says. “At the time, what we were doing with beer was very unique. Not so much anymore. But I won’t buy stuff just to populate the shelves.”
There also will be a strong retail beer and wine component, says management.
Rounding out the beverage program will be a large whiskey selection and small cocktail list.
To eat, there will be wine bar-style snacks like charcuterie, carpaccio, pates and crudites, all prepared by the Good Company team.
The whole experience is a bit surreal for Lasher, who thought he left the entire La Cave thing in his rear-view mirror.
“It’s fucking crazy,” he admits. “I keep pinching myself. It was such an important place for so many people – and it was so very important to me. We had people that were so in love with the place that they got married down there.”
La Cave du Vin will be open 5 to close every day but Wednesday.
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