By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Last September, three Grand Rapids entrepreneurs took the leap to transform a former law office at 919 Cherry St. SE into the city’s newest wine bar, Corez. The vision? Create a destination for wine lovers and those who enjoy the foods that go with wine, and do it in one of the city’s hottest business districts.
Corez is the creation of husband and wife duo Corey and Anna Waller and Mike Dombrowski, the former wine manager for Art of the Table and former sommelier at the Chop House.
“We’re basically a small establishment featuring wine by the glass and simple food,” Dombrowski says. “We’ll feature 40 wines by the glass and over 150 by the bottle. And we'll have a sommelier on the floor every night to help customers with their wine choices.”
The wines will be small production grower-produced artisanal wines, many from Michigan.
“We are getting a nitrogen preservation system to preserve opened bottles,” Dombrowski notes. “That allows us to serve rare and expensive wines by the glass; it’s typical not to sell those wines very quickly, so the nitrogen system allows us to preserve what’s left in the bottle without wasting it.”
The food menu features creative small plates, handcrafted cheeses, and an in-house charcuterie of fresh pâté, salami, cured meats and fish, smoked meats and fish and foie gras.
Dombrowski and the Wallers outbid 14 others for the purchase of the building. They’ve done much of the renovation themselves, transforming the space from eight small offices into a 68-seat dining room with a 20-foot bar. A new addition houses the kitchen; downstairs is a 5,200-bottle wine cellar.
Dombrowski expects to open Corez in early December.
“This is a dream of ours,” Dombrowski adds. “We found the building and decided to take a risk. This will be the kind of place you’ll see advertised in travel magazines and will elevate Grand Rapids as a wine destination.”
Source: Mike Dombrowski, Corez
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.