The old Vinoteca space on 11th Street NW will soon become … another wine bar.

Husband and wife team Paul and Brittany Carlson, who also own the Royal in LeDroit Park, announced on Friday that they’ll open Lulu’s Winegarden in February 2020. The Carlsons also operated Vinoteca for 12 years before closing it down in November 2019. Their revamp follows the notable trend of restaurant owners closing down their places only to open back up with a new name, concept, and menu.

“U Street has now become more of a night life destination as opposed to when we first opened [Vinoteca] in 2007. There wasn’t a lot back then to be honest,” says Paul Carlson. “When we first built Vinoteca it was designed to be more of a restaurant setting. And there were just certain things that weren’t efficient of useful or that our customer wasn’t looking for, so we have evolved ourselves to be more like what U Street is now.”

Lulu’s is going to be a “bottle-driven” wine garden, per the announcement, with two patios and a large space inside. The old Vinoteca space has been completely revamped, and new seating has been installed that’s supposed to invoke a beer garden, except, you know, with wine. Most of the seating will be made up of long communal tables (up to 36 people can sit indoors). All of them will be outfitted with built-in ice buckets to keep bottles chilled. Crucially, dogs will still be allowed on the front patio.

When Lulu’s opens in February, its front patio overlooking U Street will be open, but the rear courtyard (which will include more communal seating, an outdoor grill, and a bocce court) won’t open until later this year, in spring 2020.

The kitchen will be run by Cable Smith, the same chef who created the menu and heads up the kitchen at the Royal. The food and drink menus are still being finalized, but among the options will be french onion dip on toast (topped with salt and vinegar chips and onion ash), a white queso, a smoked pastrami-style pork belly on Texas toast, and fermented chile-smothered crispy chicken.

The wine garden will open with a list of more than 40 wines, all of them at $49 per bottle. There will also be a smaller selection of wines by the glass on offer.

Carlson says that, while the vibe and atmosphere of Lulu’s will certainly differ from their old project, people who loved Vinoteca won’t find the new place unrecognizable.

“The same ownership is still running the same program, so the nice thing about it is we will have a very similar outlook on how we run it and how we want to be a part of the community,” he says.

Previously:
When The Neighborhood Chicken Spot Becomes A Steakhouse: Why Some Restaurants Hit The Reset Button