Wine shop Dinner Party’s back room has been transformed into an event space. (Photos courtesy Dinner Party)
A new event space has opened in one of Carytown’s newest wine shops.
Dinner Party, at 3402 W. Cary St., has transformed its back room into a space that is planned to host book clubs, wine classes, business meetings and other gatherings.
The roughly 2,200-square-foot wine shop opened last November, the brainchild of Williamsburg native and certified sommelier Annie Barrow.
Barrow spent much of her career between New York and Boston’s food and beverage scenes, and most recently managed wine shop Alphabet City Wine Co. in Manhattan before making the move to Richmond.
Dinner Party stocks a variety of wines sourced mainly from small-production winemakers, and has a range of small food items and retail gifts for sale.
Barrow told BizSense that since she first laid eyes on the Dinner Party location, she envisioned putting the small back room, which spans around 280 square feet, to some use.
“The New Yorker in me thought, wow, that is a lot of usable retail space. Right off the bat, we thought we could probably turn this into some kind of tasting room, event space,” she said.
Annie Barrow
Not long after opening the doors on the wine shop, she got to work DIYing the back space in January, transforming it from an everyday storage room into a retro-inspired, foliage-filled space she’s calling the “Rosé Room.”
With her do-it-yourself efforts, including putting down hardwood floors and painting the walls pink, Barrow said the project took a couple thousand dollars to pull off.
With a geometric accent wall, a farmhouse-esque dining table, plenty of floral wall decor and washes of red and pink, the space maintains the aesthetic of the wine shop’s front room.
“We figured why not continue what we had out there,” Barrow said. “We want it to feel intimate and cute. It feels warm and inviting and like a place you want to be.”
The room can host up to 12 guests. While Dinner Party currently hosts larger events like birthday parties and wine tastings for up to 50 people in the front room, Barrow said the idea of the Rosé Room is to host more intimate events and groups.
“We could’ve made it so more people could be in here, but the vision was always a little more intimate. All the wine classes I’ve hosted or been to, you want that cozier feel,” she said.
Barrow and her team of three employees host ticketed events like wine classes and wine-and-cheese pairing classes in the space. Private wine classes led by Barrow typically cost $75 per person for four wines and a selection of snacks, with an extra $10 per-person charge for extra salumi and cheeses.
The front of Dinner Party’s Carytown location.
The Rosé Room is also available for customers to rent out. Rentals start at $250 per two-hour session on weekdays and $350 for two hours on weekends. Add-ons like an assortment of meats and snacks or a sommelier selection of wines and cheeses start at $10 per person and go up to $30 depending on the fare.
Barrow said she’s already had interest from customers wanting to use the Rosé Room for everything from book clubs to a “Real Housewives” reunion watch party. The space also has a TV that can be used for presentations for business outings.
“If you just want to be back here and have a book club with your friends and you don’t have to host it at someone’s house, you can host it here,” Barrow said. “We can be the hostess with the mostest for you.”
Dinner Party sits in the former spot of an e-cig shop for Altria’s IQOS brand that closed in 2021 after a patent case barred the tobacco producer from selling the brand’s products in the U.S. The space had been vacant prior to the wine shop slotting in.
Elsewhere in Carytown, wine and desserts shop Nouveau Provisions opened earlier this year at 3423 W. Cary St.
Wine shop Dinner Party’s back room has been transformed into an event space. (Photos courtesy Dinner Party)
A new event space has opened in one of Carytown’s newest wine shops.
Dinner Party, at 3402 W. Cary St., has transformed its back room into a space that is planned to host book clubs, wine classes, business meetings and other gatherings.
The roughly 2,200-square-foot wine shop opened last November, the brainchild of Williamsburg native and certified sommelier Annie Barrow.
Barrow spent much of her career between New York and Boston’s food and beverage scenes, and most recently managed wine shop Alphabet City Wine Co. in Manhattan before making the move to Richmond.
Dinner Party stocks a variety of wines sourced mainly from small-production winemakers, and has a range of small food items and retail gifts for sale.
Barrow told BizSense that since she first laid eyes on the Dinner Party location, she envisioned putting the small back room, which spans around 280 square feet, to some use.
“The New Yorker in me thought, wow, that is a lot of usable retail space. Right off the bat, we thought we could probably turn this into some kind of tasting room, event space,” she said.
Annie Barrow
Not long after opening the doors on the wine shop, she got to work DIYing the back space in January, transforming it from an everyday storage room into a retro-inspired, foliage-filled space she’s calling the “Rosé Room.”
With her do-it-yourself efforts, including putting down hardwood floors and painting the walls pink, Barrow said the project took a couple thousand dollars to pull off.
With a geometric accent wall, a farmhouse-esque dining table, plenty of floral wall decor and washes of red and pink, the space maintains the aesthetic of the wine shop’s front room.
“We figured why not continue what we had out there,” Barrow said. “We want it to feel intimate and cute. It feels warm and inviting and like a place you want to be.”
The room can host up to 12 guests. While Dinner Party currently hosts larger events like birthday parties and wine tastings for up to 50 people in the front room, Barrow said the idea of the Rosé Room is to host more intimate events and groups.
“We could’ve made it so more people could be in here, but the vision was always a little more intimate. All the wine classes I’ve hosted or been to, you want that cozier feel,” she said.
Barrow and her team of three employees host ticketed events like wine classes and wine-and-cheese pairing classes in the space. Private wine classes led by Barrow typically cost $75 per person for four wines and a selection of snacks, with an extra $10 per-person charge for extra salumi and cheeses.
The front of Dinner Party’s Carytown location.
The Rosé Room is also available for customers to rent out. Rentals start at $250 per two-hour session on weekdays and $350 for two hours on weekends. Add-ons like an assortment of meats and snacks or a sommelier selection of wines and cheeses start at $10 per person and go up to $30 depending on the fare.
Barrow said she’s already had interest from customers wanting to use the Rosé Room for everything from book clubs to a “Real Housewives” reunion watch party. The space also has a TV that can be used for presentations for business outings.
“If you just want to be back here and have a book club with your friends and you don’t have to host it at someone’s house, you can host it here,” Barrow said. “We can be the hostess with the mostest for you.”
Dinner Party sits in the former spot of an e-cig shop for Altria’s IQOS brand that closed in 2021 after a patent case barred the tobacco producer from selling the brand’s products in the U.S. The space had been vacant prior to the wine shop slotting in.
Elsewhere in Carytown, wine and desserts shop Nouveau Provisions opened earlier this year at 3423 W. Cary St.