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Soul N’ Vinegar’s happy hour Spanish tortilla, beef and pork meatballs, and pimento cheese toast
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Beef and pork meatballs with potato puree and pomegranate
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Spanish tortilla with shishito peppers and olives
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Soul N’ Vinegar in Church Hill
When Soul N’ Vinegar relocated to its current location on Q Street in 2023, owner Michelle Parrish knew it was an opportunity to feed people a bit differently than she had at the grab-and-go shop she opened in 2018. The extra space meant guests could sit and linger, both inside the dining room and on the patio. With that in mind, Parrish quietly launched a Friday happy hour in 2024, offering a selection of small plates designed to pair with the restaurant’s selection of wine, beer and cider. Now, the buzzy, four-hour affair is gaining momentum.
“It was always the plan to do happy hour and have something that would tap this small-plate style,” Parrish recalls. “I wanted to be able to offer a different experience, a different way for people to enjoy the shop outside of our usual lunch crowd.”
Over the past two years, Soul N’ Vinegar has established itself as a lunchtime staple in Church Hill through a dependable menu of sandwiches, customizable bowls and highly coveted spring rolls served with housemade chile oil. But with their roots in fine dining, Parrish and her partner and kitchen manager, William Rimmel, formerly of Shagbark and Lemaire, wanted to showcase other skills. The eatery’s happy hour menu harks back to Parrish’s time in the kitchen at the now shuttered Secco Wine Bar, where she learned to make a traditional Spanish tortilla — slices of potato suspended in a custardy egg mixture that is chilled, sliced and spiked onto a skewer with a shishito pepper and an olive.
“I love Secco, and I feel like its closing left a gap that’s still missing,” Parrish says. “When I want to go out and have a drink, I love tapas; that’s my favorite type of thing.” She points to the crispy chickpeas, another recognizable dish and the ideal pairing for a glass of chilled white wine. “When people say things about it reminding them of Secco, I’m so happy, because it was such a great place.”
Though the happy hour menu changes weekly, there are a handful of mainstays. A standout is the juicy pork and beef meatballs, a fixture of the restaurant’s catering menu that tries on different looks from week to week. During my visit, they came served over a creamy potato puree with charred cabbage and a sprinkle of pomegranate seeds. Parrish says the dish was born from a combination of creative reuse — a must for chefs who want to stay in business — and a desire to present a more elevated option than her everyday offerings. “The dishes are meant to be executed with a bit more finesse than the bowls that people get [at lunch],” Parrish says.
Both the focaccia and hummus appear on the weekday menu, but during happy hour they’re transformed — the bread becomes a canvas for Parrish to impart seasonal flavors such as nigella seed and roasted garlic, and the hummus gets pureed until it’s silky smooth — creating a lovely plate that happens to be vegan.
Wines, normally grab-and-go only, are available by the glass, and there’s also canned beer and cider. Parrish says her vintages, which she sources from Free Run Wine Merchants, are easy-to-drink bottles that don’t require a lot of explanation. There’s no sommelier on staff, so these bottles have to speak for themselves, and what they say is, “Fill your glass, grab a seat and relax.”
Happy hour at Soul N’ Vinegar takes place every Friday from 4 to 8 p.m.
