Woods Beer & Wine Co. Cole Valley Open House

Inside still under construction Woods Beer & Wine Co.’s Cole Valley location.

A couple of CVIA board members were fortunate enough to visit the Woods Beer & Wine Co. Open House at the companies most current location in Cole Valley on Dec 6. Jim Woods, Founder and CEO, set expectations that the site is still under construction, but that didn’t dampen turn out from folks invited to the special event.

Inside still under construction Woods Beer & Wine Co.’s Cole Valley location. This is from near the rear of the space looking out towards the front.

It was a bit strange to walk into the former Reverie Cafe space and see stark white walls and empty room instead of the familiar dark orange walls. The Woods team was pouring a couple of beers and some wine from their selections while Jim talked about the space and how they’re going to approach it as well as talking about the company and it’s unique investment business plan in which members of the community can invest in the company.

Jim assured everyone that the Cole Valley Woods location would have it’s own vibe and be a unique design from the other locations. He mentioned basically keeping the same layout as Reverie had from a bar and food prep point of view. While the new bar was not yet in place, tables were set up in roughly the same location as the counters and displays from Reverie. Presumably the same footprint for the new bar, food service.

Sample of the Lovely’s menu posted for folks to check out.

For bar munchies, this Woods location will have food from Lovely’s—pretty well known in the East Bay for their burgers. We were sort of hoping for some Detroit style pizza from Joyride Pizza as the food choice, but after some thought about it, we realize that it’s really not that far for us to make the short trek to Woods Lowside on Haight Street for some Joyride Pizza (which we’re already accustom to doing.) Plus, the burgers do sound Yummy.

Jonathan Reddick, Lovely’s owner, was available to field questions. We hit him up on how authentically Detroit (while we’re on the theme of Detroit’s best food exports) the Lovely’s Coney Island hot dog was going to be. We reminded him how the topping on a classic Detroit Coney is not chili per se, and certainly does not have beans anywhere near it, but more like a hollandaise sauce. Perhaps seeing my off the charts scrutiny level, he set my expectations that it may not be exactly like a Detroit coney dog, but will be a solid chili hotdog. We’ll give it a shot.

Jim Woods mentioned to the assembled crowd of neighborhood folks that while there wasn’t a specific opening date set in stone yet, he is hoping to have the place open by early 2024.