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Jardin is located at 1521 W. Main St. in the former Baja Bean space. (Photo courtesy of Jardin)
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Jardin's selections will be organized by occasion and stylistic similarities, from a section dubbed "Baller Bottles" to those geared for a night of "Netflix and Chill." (Photo courtesy of Jardin)
When Donnie Glass speaks about wine, it’s clear he has a deep and unabashed adoration for it. During a trip to New York earlier this year, his to-do list included drinking Champagne for lunch and making pit stops at wine bars. He can direct you to a bottle suited for a sunny beach day, or for a graduation party. And at the Church Hill bouchon-inspired restaurant Grisette he and his wife, Megan, opened in the summer of 2019, the couple has adopted the role of wine authority, hosting a dedicated wine club that started during the pandemic and now has more than 175 members.
As for the duo’s forthcoming venture, Jardin, French for the word “garden,” Glass says, “It’s a wine place, it’s really hard to give a word to the exact concept.
“It’s not a wine bar, because it’s a bottle shop too, and a place to eat as well,” he continues. “But, if I call it a retail wine shop, I feel like it downplays the fact that we have this big beautiful patio space where we’re obviously encouraging people to drink.”
Whatever its title, the ménage à grape set to debut in the next two weeks at 1520 W. Main St. in the Fan will bring life to the shuttered Baja Bean space, and will be a place where wine is put on a pedestal.
“The idea is to surround wine with energy and make it accessible and talk about it, or don’t talk about it if you don’t want to talk about it,” Glass explains. “We are there to be enthusiastic about the juice itself, that’s what makes us excited.
Jardin will be home to about 150 different wines with a large by-the-glass offering. Menu items will include cheese, charcuterie and accouterments such as foie gras torchon and rabbit rillettes, to conservas and tinned fish, along with sandwiches served on housemade focaccia and a soup of the day during colder months.
For those who wish to imbibe on premise, there will be a $10 corkage fee for bottles, $5 for wine club members. Glass notes that because Jardin lacks the infrastructure of a full-service restaurant, it allows them to keep prices more approachable.
A uncertified hype man of the grape, Glass points to the sudsy movement Richmond experienced in the past decade with a craft beer boom and the evolution of taproom culture, drawing similarities to his own venture and hope for wine’s place in Richmond’s food and beverage landscape.
“The beer industry in Richmond is awesome and enviable, so many people are excited and come from all over America to visit tasting rooms and nerd out," he says. "And I don’t feel that way about beer, but I do about wine.”
In the past few years, there has an influx of juicy new wine-related businesses, from RichWine, a local delivery service from UVA grads Lance Lemon and Kristen Gardner to the historically inspired Shockoe Wine to the addition of Second Bottle Wine Shop in Church Hill. There has also been the founding of outlets such as Black Girls Wine Club and Women in Wine that aim for more inclusivity within the world of wine. Nearby, Celladora Wines, a wine shop, bar and cafe is preparing to open doors at 111 N. Lombardy St.
The building that houses Jardin features a handful of tenants including Boho To Go, Small Friend Records & Books and zero-waste and refill shop Less Than. Originally searching for a space to store bottles from Grisette’s wine club, Glass says that plan changed when he realized the Craigslist ad also listed the outdoor area at the corner of Main and Lombardy Streets .
“It’s fun to take a legendary restaurant and flip it,” Glass says. "I have so much respect for what Baja was and the longevity they had and the place that it holds in a lot of people’s hearts for better or worse. We are going to continue to respect that and pay homage that we are kind of in a legendary Fan spot and notorious and unforgettable patio space.”
At Jardin, Glass says his team of wine enthusiasts is ambitious to outfit people with what they want or what they need, and notes that bottles will be organized by occasion — from weeknight dinners to snow days — and stylistic similarities — big reds, crisp whites — as opposed to by regions.
“This is an open-minded wine place, a place that celebrates the consumption of wine and we don’t fetishize labels and we’re not militantly cliquey about what kind of wine we drink," Glass says. "We just really appreciate wine and how it enhances our lives."
Jardin will be closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and open Wednesday and Thursday from noon to 11 p.m., and 11 a.m. to midnight on Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 8.m. on Sunday.
