Chill Country, Texas

Austin’s pour-your-own wine bar wanders to the east side with new location

The lust-worthy tap wall will feature some 80 wines.

If life these days has got you seriously lusting after some wine, it may be time to tap into the east side’s newest vino spot.

Wanderlust Wine Company, the downtown wine bar dubbed the “largest self-pour wine-on-tap winery in the world,” is opening a second location at 702 Shady Ln., in the building that formerly housed another wine fave: Infinite Monkey Theorem, which was forced to close its Austin location during the pandemic.

The new Wanderlust, which owner Sammy Lam tells CultureMap is currently in its soft-launch phase and will open fully in mid-September, will breathe new life into the 13,000-square-foot East Austin historical building in the new Shady Lane development, while also honoring its past.

The 1939 building, which Lam notes is one of the tallest remaining wooden structures in the state, was in the process of getting a facelift from Infinite Monkey prior to that business pulling out of the space. Lam decided to bring his Wanderlust to the building in a fitting a nod to the Infinite Monkey folks, who he says were his mentors when he first began his wine career.

“We won the bid between us and a tech company that wanted to demolish and build a multilevel corporate office, allowing us to preserve this unique building in Austin that embodies the Austin culture and spirit, as it is completely filled with street art, unique décor, rustic aesthetics, and, of course, great wine,” Lam tells CultureMap.

While the new Wanderlust location will feature 16 wines on tap and a few specials during its soft launch, the bar will open in September with upwards of 80 wines on tap, most of which can be self-poured by patrons. Lam notes he aims to have Wanderlust be a pioneer of the new food, beverage, and entertainment district in East Austin known as Shady Lane.

“Hi-Sign Brewery and Holiday on Seventh — a cocktail lounge concept led by one of the owners of Kinda Tropical — are all set to be our neighbors in the next six to 12 months, too,” Lam says.

Wanderlust fans can expect the same type of eclectic and eye-popping colorful art found at the bar’s originally downtown location, and considering previous tenant Infinite Monkey featured some similar décor and flair, the Wanderlust style should develop easily in the space.

With the new location, Lam says Wanderlust is working to connect the Texas Hill Country to what he terms his east side location: the chill country. Wanderlust will partner with Hill Country wineries and even offer a transport service to haul Wanderlust wine lovers from the east side spot to its winery partners in the Hill Country.

It’s all part of Wanderlust’s impressive expansion plans, which, in the long run, include adding other locations throughout Texas. For a small, local, minority-owned business managing the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic — and opening a second location that has cost twice the expense — it’s a lofty goal, but one Lam hopes can shake up the Texas wine scene.

“This is our second location,” Lam says, “but it is our hope and goal to commercialize our wine product soon, as well as open other locations around the state. This, of course, will be in a few years from now, as we recover from COVID-19’s economic impacts, but we are already thinking for the future.”

east-austin openings wine

Belles of the Ballroom

9 Austin bar and venue experts take over popular Old Austin space near UT

29th Street Ballroom/Facebook

Changes are coming at the 29th Street Ballroom, but the goal is to preserve what already makes it special.

The evolution continues at the 29th Street Ballroom, the music venue formerly attached to Spider House Café. It's no secret, Resound Presents CEO and co-founder Graham Williams says, that he and a large team of other industry pros are taking over the space; but now they're ready to talk about what comes next for the venue and adjoining bar.

Although Spider House Café closed in 2020, the Ballroom stayed open, and has continued serving University of Texas students and anyone else who wants to see a show outside of the ordinary: punk shows, burlesque revues, fundraisers, and more. It'll stay open through most of the renovations, scheduled through January of 2025, and is expected to hold a grand opening in March.

Now Resound — one of Austin's top live music organizers, which was itself born from the ashes of another Austin institution — is lending two of its co-founders to managing the space going forward: Williams and Ian Orth. They're joining seven other team members from venues around town, many of them overlapping: Amy Mullins, Brian Tweedy, Jason McNeely, John Yaklin, and Shannon LeBoeuf of Hotel Vegas, Chess Club, Kinda Tropical, Tweedy’s, and Yellow Jacket Social Club, in varying capacities; and Brian Buscemi and Mike Sanchez of the Little Darlin’.

Williams emphasizes that although things will be changing at the Ballroom, the goal isn't to change anything people already love.

"Over the next few months as we kind of ease into the spring, we're using this downtime to revitalize things, decorate, revamp some of the stuff in the venue and the bar, and just kind of get things moving in the right direction," Williams says, "taking what's already popular about the venue and just adding to it, really."

Bar updates
The biggest shift will be turning the bar from an accessory to live shows into its own entity that's open even when there's nothing else going on. Amy Mullins, best known as a co-owner of Yellow Jacket Social Club, is overseeing that transition. She's never operated a venue that is primarily focused on music, and has been enjoying learning more about how to do it; she even worked the door recently when a staff member called out sick.

Mullins echoes Williams in assuring that the change is more about logistics than tone. It'll still feel like Old Austin, but she does express a hope to run more than the "typical venue bar," handing out simple drinks as quickly as possible. She's working on a new menu that includes wine, beer, craft cocktails, and non-alcoholic options like tea, kombucha, or mocktails. Regardless of what's on the schedule on any given night, Mullins says the menu will stay the same.

"There's no drink too complicated for us to make, however busy we are," she says.

Food options
Another goal for the team will be making sure the space works when there's not someone onstage to crowd around. They'll expand the front and side patios and create a food truck food court that features the same trucks that are there now, plus one newcomer. All in all, that includes Yalla Burger & Wings, Gyro Center, Li’l Nonna’s Vegan Pizzeria, Guppy’s Indian Fried Chicken, Waylon J’s BBQ, and Ay Chihuahua Tacos.

The expanded patio will connect to Tweedy's Bar next door, which also has its own food trucks. The idea is to create a space to hang out after shows that feels fit for the purpose. It's possible to stick around after events now, but the layout does create a vague feeling of loitering.

Artist and fan-friendly tweaks
On the entertainment side, Williams says some of the renovations include putting in a new sound system, redoing the green room, updating the facade, and repainting signs. Since the winter is a slower time for live music, they'll be taking advantage of the extra time to work on things before packing the calendar with more events than before. Resound will handle most of the bookings in live music, comedy, and DJ sets, welcoming both national and local talent.

Whatever the details end up being, this team has proved to Austinites that they know how to run venues worth visiting. And since they're all friends and business partners on multiple levels, it sounds like having this many cooks in the kitchen just isn't an issue.

"Some of us have been roommates and known each other since we were young," says Williams. "It's a good mix of people who are all very like minded, so a lot is being brought to the table per decision. So yeah, it's it's really exciting. Sometimes that's not the case. .... But with this project, it's a lot of really great, creative people that are good at what they do [and] they trust each other."

bars live music concerts comedy