"When City Winery opens at 10th and Filbert next week, the wide, curved staircase that leads from the street-level restaurant to the downstairs winery and music venue will be lined with custom-made, curved wooden compartments lit from behind and stacked with thousands of wine bottles. But at the moment, it’s all concrete, metal, and dust — like the rest of the space. 'Somehow, we will be open next week,' says Michael Dorf, CEO of City Winery, during a tour of the chain’s first Philly location. The same last-minute rush to finish happened at six other City Winery locations, he says, joking that the first diners and concert-goers got paint on their backs from leaning against the walls. Dorf, who co-founded the Knitting Factory in New York City in 1987, opened City Winery, also in New York, in 2008. Now in a handful of big cities, it’s a music venue, restaurant, bar, and urban winery all under one roof. Grapes are shipped in from California and Oregon for the wines, which are made onsite and mostly stored, without added sulfites, in stainless steel kegs for the tap system, rather than bottled. In Philly, those wines — plus beer and cocktails — will be served inside the street-level 150-seat music venue, at the adjacent 90-seat restaurant and 20-seat bar, and one floor down in the 350-seat music venue. The winery is also below ground. The whole thing spans more than 35,000 square feet. There’s one more piece: a mall bar. But like, a cool mall bar. City Winery is in Fashion District Philadelphia, the long-awaited new mall replacing the Gallery. Shoppers won’t be able to see inside most of it since City Winery’s interior windows looking into the mall will be blocked by wine barrels, but they will be able to access a separate bar. Fashion District and City Winery open the same day, September 19. Like in City Winery’s Barrel Room restaurant, there’s table service in the music venues, which open about two hours before a show. You could eat at the restaurant and then head to the concert, or settle into your concert seats and order a full meal. With half-moon tables filling the room in front of the stage, general manager Michael Chrupcala, who’s coming from the Hard Rock Cafe a block away, says it’s 'like an old-school supper club. It’s dinner and a show.' The menu leans Mediterranean, he says, but of course there will be 'some version of a cheesesteak,' plus tomato pie. About three-quarters of the dishes on offer are the same as the other locations; the rest are tweaked for Philly by executive chef Jason Heim, who was at the City Winery in Nashville before heading this way. When it’s up and running, City Winery will be open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and until midnight Friday and Saturday. The starting concert lineup is here. The first show is September 27, a week after City Winery opens, 'so we have time to get our shit together,' Dorf says." - Rachel Vigoda
