Wine bar opens on Trade Street

Rebekah Rhoden, a graphic designer, and Anna Impson, a web developer, opened Little Pep on April 25 and are planning their grand opening May 11.

Open Thursday through Sunday, Little Pep focuses on natural, or low-intervention, wines. The bar serves snacks and small plates. It also sells bottles of wine and some pantry food and kitchen items to take home.

Little Pep is named after the Little Pep Grill, which was a restaurant on North Cherry Street many years ago. (You can see the photo at digitalforsyth.org.) “We thought it would be cool to bring back a little bit of Winston history, as an homage to that old business,” Rhoden said.

Rhoden and Impson said that the idea for Little Pep evolved during the coronavirus pandemic. “We chatted a lot about what we wanted to do with our lives,” Impson said, recognizing that web development and graphic design were “young people’s work.”

So, at age 30 and 31, respectively, Rhoden and Impson began to think of the next phase.

“We’d always been making others’ dreams come true. We wanted to do something creative but not sitting at home behind a computer all day,” Rhoden said. “And we both love food, wine and traveling.”

“Last year, one day we were walking our dog—about February or March—and Rebekah was like, ‘I think we should open a wine bar.’ And I said, ‘Rebekah, you’re insane.’ But then it started to make sense.”

They began to think about the small wine bars they had discovered in such places as Barcelona and San Sebastian, Spain.

They especially loved how their favorite bars didn’t take wine too seriously – yet served high-quality wine.

They made wine “super-approachable,” Rhoden said. “So, we wanted something not stuffy, that can be super-casual and fun, not serious, but really, really good quality.”

They tested the waters by doing some pop-ups last year at Fair Witness, a cocktail bar in Innovation Quarter to gauge community interest and their own interest, too. “By the second or third pop-up, we were talking to the landlord about this space,” Impson said.

Impson and Rhoden are especially interested in natural or low-intervention wines. These are typically made from organic or biodynamically grown grapes but are in particular expressive of the vineyard, with minimal intervention by the winemaker. “They’re wines that showcase the grapes, where there’s less manipulation, where the winemakers are more like the farmers,” Impson said.

These wines often are unfiltered, fermented with wild yeasts and made with few if any additives.

“Natural” is not even a common label you’ll see on a wine bottle. Instead, identifying these wines often involves research into the producer and their growing and winemaking practices, which in some cases turns up classic wines that have been made the same way for centuries.

Often these wines are from artisanal producers who make wines in small batches. So, Little Pep’s selection doesn’t include big or well-known producers. Some of their wines feature lesser-known grapes such as grolleau, fiano or mondeuse.

Little Pep has about 10 wines by the glass. There also are a few beers, as well as nonalcoholic beverages.

They have four taps. Currently, they have a sparkling rose and wine spritzer on tap, plus a pale ale from Keepsake Brewery in Gastonia.

Nonalcohol options include Everhop Citrus Mango hopwater (like a nonalcoholic IPA), Unified Ferments Qi Dan kombucha and ISH Spirits alcohol-free lime daiquiri.

In addition to the wines by the glass or on tap, there’s a larger selection by the bottle on the bar’s shelves – with two prices: one for drinking there (with a built-in corkage fee), and one for taking home.

Impson said they try to offer a variety of beverages at a variety of price points. “When we started this, we wanted to make this really approachable, so anyone could feel they could come hang out here,” she said. “So, we have High Life Ponys (10-ounce bottles of Miller beer) for $2.50. We have a full shelf devoted to nonalcoholic drinks.”

Little Pep has a small kitchen in the back and has hired someone to prepare food on-site.

During the day, the menu will be limited to simple snacks, such as olives, bread and cheese plates.

The evening menu includes more substantial fare, such as white-bean hummus with focaccia; salads; burrata with mortadella; and rice bowls.

“We’re not a restaurant by any means, but we will have small plates,” Rhoden said.

“And want to have people come in and do food pop-ups,” Impson said.

Little Pep also is a small market. “It’s like a curated pantry,” Impson said, with such selected items as olive oils, canned tomatoes, chocolate bars, cutting boards and vintage glassware.

The bar also will have wine tastings and is considering a wine club and a book club.

Rhoden and Impson said that the bar has brought together many of their interests – design, branding, hospitality, food and wine. What they hope is that it will become a neighborhood hangout and a place to try new and interesting wines that people don’t see everywhere else.

They joked that they even considered having a night of speed “dating” for people who want to make friends.

“I always wanted this space to be a place where you’re meeting new people,” Impson said, “where it could feel like a house party, where you could come hang out and make new friends.”