A former floral shop in North Raleigh is about to become a wine den. Stevie and Jason King have signed a lease for Velvet & Vine, a new wine lounge planned for Suite 107 at Falls River Town Center at 10501 Shadowlawn Drive, with an opening targeted for November.
The couple, who live in the North Raleigh area, signed the lease in July and plan to begin construction in September, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. Velvet & Vine will occupy the space once home to Flowers and Flowers, a local floral shop, in a roughly 1,159-square-foot unit within Falls River Town Center, according to leasing materials from York Properties, the Raleigh-based firm that manages the shopping center.
Stevie and Jason King identified a lack of casual wine eateries in the area, and the venue will be the couple's first joint business venture. Stevie King, who has experience as a realtor, will serve as the face of Velvet & Vine, while Jason King handles the business's behind-the-scenes work, the newspaper reports.
A Wine Den With European Roots
Velvet & Vine plans to offer thoughtfully selected wines, shareable small plates and what the owners describe as a warm, inviting atmosphere. Small bites will include charcuterie, flatbreads and burrata, and the bar will feature connections drawn from the owners' travels to Italy and France, per the same News & Observer report.
The lounge will focus on working with small wine houses and will offer European wines, including prosecco and champagne. Stevie King became interested in wine through a friend after she was in her 30s, and she has said the bar should offer products unavailable at grocery stores. Per the venue's Instagram caption, Velvet & Vine welcomes people with varying levels of wine knowledge.
Stevie King said she wants the wine bar to feel like a living room where customers stay for a while. The design will lean into that idea, with a wine-den aesthetic built around ambiance, lighting, velvet and earthy tones, the article notes.
Plenty of Neighbors, and Built-In Foot Traffic
Falls River Town Center is anchored by a Food Lion supermarket, with co-tenants including Ace Hardware, Sake House, Snap Fitness, Hot Yoga and Tanas Day Spa, according to York Properties leasing documents. The center sits less than half a mile from WakeMed North Hospital on Durant Road, a major regional medical center whose adjoining 50,000-square-foot medical office park employs hundreds of healthcare workers nearby, according to commercial listing data from PropertyShark.
The shopping center also directly borders several dense, affluent master-planned communities, including Bedford at Falls River, Raven Pointe, Woodspring, Kings Crest and Savannah Ridge, most of which were built out in the late 1990s and 2000s, per Alexander Realty. In the surrounding 27614 ZIP code, the median household income is $128,834 with a median owner-occupied home value of $577,400, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, and more than 34,000 residents live in the immediate area.
Retail space within Falls River Town Center has been marketed at base rental rates ranging from $23.50 to $35.00 per square foot triple net, meaning tenants like Velvet & Vine would pay base rent plus property taxes, insurance and common area maintenance on top of that figure, per York Properties. To pour wine on-site, the Kings will need an On-Premises Unfortified Wine Permit from the N.C. ABC Commission, a $400 annual license that allows retail sales of wine up to 16% alcohol by volume for both on-site consumption and sealed take-home bottles, with permittees also required to submit a beverage container recycling plan as part of the application.
Part of a Bigger Triangle Trend
Velvet & Vine's arrival fits a pattern playing out across the Triangle, where suburban shopping centers have leaned on wine bars and casual gathering spots to turn retail strips into evening social hubs. Hoodline reported on a similar shift at Chapel Hill's University Place, where Postino Wine Cafe became part of a broader mall makeover earlier this year.
North Raleigh has already seen other new openings this summer, including a scalp spa that opened on July 24, according to the News & Observer. Whether Velvet & Vine keeps its November target remains to be seen, but for now the Kings are betting that their North Raleigh neighbors are ready for a wine-den living room of their own.
