Dayton’s Wine Gallery & Cafe

I realized something recently… I’m kind of tired of going out to dinner are the restaurants around me. They’re the same old thing over and over again for the most part. Go in, maybe order an appetizer to share, get an entree, and go home having eaten too much of the same old same old.

About a week and a half ago, I found out that Dayton, Ohio, offers an alternative… A real wine bar! Ok, Brian, the owner and proprieter of the Wine Gallery & Cafe (WG&C), has a chef that cooks, too, but I have to be honest; the food isn’t the real reason to be there. Don’t get me wrong… The food is good. The au gratin potatoes, in fact, are great! But what sets WG&C apart is the treatment of wine.

It’s nice to have a local place that has a good wine list, but there are several in Dayton that can handle that. There’s even a couple of places with really good selections of wines available by the glass. WG&C goes one step further by offering something like thirty (sorry, I didn’t count them) flights of wines on the menu. Their take on a flight is three glasses with two ounce pours of different wines that are linked by a theme. With so many flights, the themes are pretty varied, from sweet whites to big reds, and everthing in between. Each flight has a quick description above it, such as Pinot Noirs, or Sweet Reds, Spicy Reds, Oaky Whites, etc.

If that’s not enough, WG&C goes yet one more step ahead of any place else around by offering these flights at the price of a glass of wine, instead of a higher price as I’ve seen before. How does Brian do this? First, he sells bottles of wine at state minimum prices. Second, he adds a $5 corking fee for having a bottle at the restaurant. Third, he goes through a lot of wine by offering all this together, so the wines stay very drinkable.

We’re planning another visit very soon. Our plan is to have several people go along, get a large table, order some appetizers and flights of wine, and enjoy spending time with friends. Then we’ll order more appetizers and another round of flights, and continue relaxing.

There have been places pop up in Dayton that I thought were fun, and I hoped would be around for a while. The Wine Gallery & Cafe is not only a place I hope sticks around… I’ll be really disappointed if it doesn’t. This is the kind of place that I can get used to, the kind of place where you get to know the owner and the staff by name. And not to leave the staff out, Sandy waited on us, and she was great… Friendly, attentive… it was just nice to have her serve us.

So if you’re in the Dayton area, show up at the corner of 3rd and Wayne around 7 pm on April 12… We’ll find a way to make room at our table for you. And, Brian, if you read this, here’s hoping things continue to just get better; you’ll be seeing us again… and if Sandy’s working on the 12th, we want to be at one of her tables.