The wine merchant of East Marshall is still smiling

Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving. Here’s a Church Hill thing I’m thankful for: Second Bottle Wine and Snack Shop on Marshall Street. Drank a bunch of wine from there just yesterday, in fact. It’s my platonic ideal of a neighborhood wine shop—a place with affordable prices, smart selection, and a friendly staff that won’t make fun of me for forgetting the difference between Chianti and Chianti Classico. (Just kidding: can’t forget what I never learned in the first place.) Second Bottle deserves your business on merit alone—but this holiday season, it could really use it, too.

You’ve probably heard that last Sunday morning the building that houses Sub Rosa Bakery caught fire. (Thanks to The Lookout tipsters who sent me emails about the blaze.) The fire appears to have started in either the attic, or the bakery’s chimney, then spread to the second-floor apartments. Sub Rosa is currently closed, which is terrible considering a) the beloved bakery already clawed its way back from a devastating fire in 2013, and b) the holidays are traditionally a boon for baked-goods sales. On the latter tip, shoutout to Pizza Bones, the other ace baking outfit on Jefferson Avenue, for opening their ovens to fire their neighbors’ already-made doughs on Sunday—and to all the Church Hillians (is this a thing? Maybe Hilltoppers?) who bought ‘em out on the quick to inject some cash into Sub Rosa’s coffers.

Speaking of cash: a community member created a GoFundMe fundraiser for the venerable shop with the goal of raising $50,000 to “help those most impacted in the immediate aftermath of the fire,” as owners Evin and Evrim Dogu put it in a brief note on the page. At writing, donors have already raised around $34,000 for Sub Rosa. Good going, neighbors.

That’s a lovely story about a community answering the call, you may be thinking to yourself, but wasn’t this column about a wine shop? Indeed. Return your attention to those second-story apartments above Sub Rosa, reader. The upstairs unit that was spewing flames from its windows in Sunday’s blaze had been Second Bottle owner Erin Keene’s home for the past two years. The wine merchant of East Marshall Street is in fire-induced flux for the holidays—but somehow still smiling through it.

The upbeat attitude is partly a matter of holiday circumstance. Five blocks due south of Sub Rosa, Second Bottle was unaffected by the fire, so Keene was able to keep normal business hours this past week despite the devastation to her apartment. It’s hard to despair in a cozy bottle shop bustling with festive energy.

“This is our very busiest week, our busiest three days of the year, really,” Keene told The Lookout in an interview at Second Bottle on Wednesday morning. “They’re [usually] my happiest days. They’re the most stressful, but the most rewarding here. So what is difficult to juggle now, is this heart that is full of devastation, but also awe, and joy too, because I love it. This is why you own a wine shop, so that you can share.”

The hospitality cuts both ways. After Keene posted a personal update to the shop’s Instagram page about the fire, people descended on Second Bottle, asking for her by name, offering hugs, food, and clothes, asking her what else she needs.

“I'm blown away by the kindness, just genuine kindness, from people that I know and see every day, people that I don't see every day but have come to be acquaintances with, people that I don't know at all,” she said.

Luckily, Keene’s family lives nearby, so she’s got a place to stay for the immediate future while she sorts out a new living arrangement. She’s not sure what she’ll be able to salvage of her belongings, but her five-year-old mutt Cooper is holding up almost as admirably as his owner. Bigger considerations—clothes, furniture, a new lease—will have to wait until after the holidays. A GoFundMe set up by a friend to help Keene rebuild her personal life has already surpassed $10,000. (Good going, neighbors x2.)

In her professional life, Keene spent an emotional week drawing energy and gratitude from how her neighbors have showed up for her and her shop.

“It feels so trite, but Church Hill really is an incredible neighborhood. I just adore the community that comes in here, and I want them to have a special holiday, and I'm so touched to be a part of it. I guess that's what I'm feeling now, is receiving that back.”

“It's profound,” she added. “I don’t know if I can put words to it beyond that.”

On Tuesday, Second Bottle recorded its biggest single day of sales in four years of business. On Wednesday, it broke that newly set record. Partly, this is a matter of holiday circumstance: Thanksgiving is one of the biggest wine-drinking holidays of the year, after all, and Keene and her wonderful staff really are that good. Another reading is that as thankful as Keene is for Church Hill, Church Hill is just as thankful for her and her wine shop. I know I am.

📚 Recent Little Free Library finds

I’ve lived in three cities in my adult life (four if you count college as part of “adult life,” and Charlottesville as a “city.”) New York City and Charleston both had Little Free Libraries, but I never found one that boasted the rapid turnover, breadth of selection, or sheer size of the one hugging Riverbend Roastery’s exterior wall on 27th Street at East Broad Street. I’m a big fan.

You may not realize this, but “Little Free Library” is kind of the Kleenex of neighborhood book-sharing huts, in the sense that it’s actually a specific brand owned by an eponymous nonprofit out of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Some stats about Little Free Libraries, as seen on Little Free Library dot org:

• 72% of volunteer stewards have met more neighbors because of their Little Free Library

• On average, one book is shared in a Little Free Library every day

• 98% of people say their neighborhood feels like a friendlier place because of a Little Free Library

The Lookout was not able to independently verify those figures, and frankly, didn’t even bother trying. Who cares if they’re true? They feel true, and isn’t that more important, anyway? In this very specific, very low-stakes context, at least? I think so.

The Riverbend LFL is not among the half-dozen “chartered” huts in Church Hill listed on the org’s map, but that’s alright, because it’s very real. I should know, I’ve gotten a bunch of books from it, including:

• The Constant Gardener by da gawd John le Carré

• Death of A Prankster by M.C. Eaton

• Death of A Maid, also by M.C. Eaton

• Nixonland by Rick Perlstein

• American Pastoral by Philip Roth

Probably some others I’m forgetting, too. Did you put one of those books in there? If so, thanks, neighbor! And thank you to the unnamed steward of the Riverbend LFL.

As for the rest of youse, The Lookout would like to know: what’s your best LFL pickup lately? Send responses (and photos if you’ve got ‘em) to [email protected].

📜 Possum Poetry

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

📸 A Very CHill Photo