If you pour it, they will come!

What a weekend we had at The Grind, from an unbelievable wine tasting to great music and a room full of TV stars. If you missed it, you were one of the few, because we had a couple standing room only nights.

Everly played again on Saturday, this time for a full hour, covering Tom Petty and singing some of their originals. Amber belted out Peter Gabriel’s “In your Eyes,” (great pipes!) and the boisterous crowd fell silent when the girls sang their signature (soon to be) hit “Home is Me, You Are Mine.” I truly believe this song will be getting major radio play before we know it. It is absolutely haunting, and shows the range these two have. If it doesn’t give you goose bumps, you aren’t alive!

Joy and Amber received a lot of support from the One Tree Hill cast and crew, with several co-stars, the creator and at least one editor coming out to hear them sing. A few of them seemed to enjoy our place, and one or two said they would be back. Hopefully, we will get Everly in here one more time to practice before their Nashville performance.

If you missed last week’s wine tasting, boy howdy did you miss a good one! Both parking lots were full, cars were lined up the street, and we were standing room only inside. I’m not sure if it was the wine, or the fudge, or both. But the crowd enjoyed the pairings, as we matched wines with different fudge flavors from Carolina Beach’s own Fudgeboat. An almond champagne, a fume blanc, a Syrah, cab and zin, and then wrapped it up with a sweet sparkler (matched with chocolate-covered strawberries). We ran out of fudge, and most of the wine, so I think it is safe to say the response was good.

Friday night, Dave and Jeremy rocked the house, and at the end of the evening, after the crowd had cleared out, Dave sat back down at the piano and serenaded us with a couple numbers. It was pretty cool. Saturday, before Everly played, Lou and John Garcia came in with a couple other gentlemen, calling themselves “Your Elected Officials,” and got the crowd warmed up for the girls. They rocked, and had the crowd wound up with “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” as Joy and Amber walked in the door.

Dave and Jeremy played Blackhorn Saturday night, so after we closed, we all went over and closed down Blackhorn. It was a very interesting evening, and there were several situations that caused me to exclaim, “This is why we close at eleven!” I can’t relate them all here without offending any number of people, so let’s just say I am glad we close at eleven.
This morning, I bought myself a new pry bar and small sledge hammer, as I prepare to tear into the walls in advance of kitchen construction. Wednesday, we will be in Raleigh for Sysco’s food trade show, getting more ideas and seeing new products. Chef Ed will be travelling with us, so the creative juices will be flowing.

Anyway, this week Billy, from Tryon, will be doing our tasting. He always has interesting wines (remember “The Other?”), so we are looking forward to Thursday. The big, bad Benmarco is also one of his, and we have nine bottles of this huge malbec blend. There will not be any more until next year’s release!

Our usual music will return Friday and Saturday (as far as we know!), and we will be fully stocked and ready to pour.

So, come on out to 2 Wine Guys @ The Grind, and let us pour you a glass.

Shawn