In the world of getting your point across in 140 characters, acronyms have become a way of life. When Joanne Chang started expanding her Flour locations, she dubbed them F1, F2 and F3. Extremely helpful and the perfect length for Twitter. With the need for brevity in mind, you may start seeing The Urban Grape referred to as UGCH (Chestnut Hill) and the new store referred to as UGSE (South End).
Our architects at Oudens Ello Architecture (right here in the South End!) have been working non-stop on the plans for the new space and we couldn’t be more excited about them. We thought we had the plans finalized last week when Grub Street released the rendering, but a last minute meeting brought about a flurry of creative ideas and tweaks. What’s so amazing to me is that all of the tweaks were a result of trying to trim our construction budget. These pictures show that when you have a creative team at the helm, big budget cuts can end up feeling like you’ve won the lottery.
You can’t see all the elements of the store, but these renderings should give you a great sense of space as we are presently imagining it. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do. Please leave a comment and let us know what you think!
A view from the entrance of 303 Columbus Avenue, looking toward the wall of wine. Note the new round tasting machine!
To the right, our expanded beer and sake sections.
An enormous tasting table toward the back of the store. This is the hub of UGSE. All of our interactive pieces from meetings to tastings to chef nights to private parties will happen right here. The dropped chandelier makes this feel like a room within a room.
A view back toward the POS and entrance from the street. Spirits will again be located behind the POS as they are in Chestnut Hill.
Things you can’t see – the beer cooler and shelving for the Samplers and some merchandising.
This looks like a really big store. I also like the seating arrangement.
Good S.Enders have it all.
Comment by Maria — June 16, 2012 @ 8:10 pm
So excited you’re opening a store in the South End! I’ve missed stopping by the Chestnut Hill store since I’ve moved here
Comment by Anne — July 3, 2012 @ 2:10 pm