2 March 2022
[Editor’s Note: In this occasional series, a local food and beverage worker recommends a favorite restaurant and shares a meal with Free Times.]Sitting down with Tim Gardner, who owns Main Street’s Lula Drake Wine Parlour, you needed never guess that the multi-talented sommelier and film creation company co-owner grew up simply shy of an hour through Columbia. As a child, Gardner did not leave the South frequently. Even as he went away from to college to Winthrop, this individual stayed about an hour from their hometown, Camden. But based on Gardner, his parents at all times knew that he would set off on his own path eventually. This individual moved out to California to go to graduate school at the University or college of California Los Angeles to analyze film and theater. Whilst there, he discovered their love for wine, visiting Northern California to get encounter. “I would work in any basement that people would have me at no cost. I was just a cellar verweis trying to get experience and so I began doing that and working in vineyards and the whole world became available to me, ” Gardner mentioned.
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The world really did open up for your pet. He began to travel even more — after becoming a sommelier (essentially, a certified wine expert), this individual was able to work for a number of years to have an import company blending wine beverages all over Spain, while traveling to and fro to California. Gardner invested his time traveling plus creating wines — a profession path he could’ve in no way imagined for himself. One more thing he couldn’t have dreamed was moving back to Sc. Gardner loved California plus didn’t plan to leave, yet he loved his youthful daughter, who was in Sc with his ex-wife, more. He or she moved back to the state using the intention of leaving “as soon as his child was old enough to obtain on a plane and take a flight to California to see your pet. “But, like those of the particular grapevines in California, root base started getting deeper just for Gardner. He met their wife, Lorie, here in Columbia and they started a video creation service, Mad Monkey, jointly. He came up with the idea regarding Lula Drake here plus made it happen — in Nov 2016 he opened up your wine bar on Columbia’s Primary Street. Eventually, it was excessive to uproot, but Gardner said he’s happy this individual stayed.
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He right now lives within walking range of the wine bar, yet tries to push himself to get spots outside of the downtown region to frequent. Gardner discussed his love for vacation over birria from Actual Mexico on Bush Water Road — a spot which he said reminds him to be in Mexico. While We tried the pollo que tiene queso, which when stirred together with rice and coffee beans creates a wonderful combination of tasty flavors. While Gardner offers spent the majority of his moves in between California and The country of spain, he’s also made prevents in several European countries, Mexico plus, before the pandemic, frequent excursions to New York. He has not traveled much since COVID-19 began. Not only did traveling cease, Gardner was also required to close the doors of Lula Drake. He didn’t reopen for over a year, while other areas on Main Street opened up their doors much previously. One of his favorite areas sat vacant, missing the existence of folks he had come to understand and care about. “I would certainly go in and work trying to get as much stuff performed at Lula as I can during the months we were shut and it was depressing. I had created go in and I’m right now there by myself looking around like ‘I put all this work directly into this place and it’s simply sitting here, ‘” Gardner said. Eventually, the wine pub reopened in the summer of a year ago after the vaccine became available plus COVID-19 cases began to fall. As new variants made an appearance and case numbers spiked, Lula Drake was able to stay open by requiring customers be vaccinated, something that Gardner no longer requires but highly encourages. This was a proceed that made Lula 1 of 2 spots in the area where vaccines were required for dining. Gardner hasn’t received backlash out of this, he said, while others who may have enforced policies like their have seen some.
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“I keep in mind the first night we opened up back up and I heard sounds again in there, other than my own and I just got chills. This is, I love this location. I love the fact that people come in and be in an intimate area and meet new people and enjoy great food, good conversation, great wine. And you get to overlook all these things that are going upon in the world for an hour, inch he said.