‘So happy that we get a second chance’: Main Street’s Lula Drake ready for a comeback
It’s like a grand opening all over again for one of Main Street’s most distinct businesses, which has held out longer than most to reopen since the coronavirus pandemic struck.
“I’m just so happy that we get a second chance,” said Tim Gardner, sitting fully vaccinated and unmasked — at long last — on a worn leather couch looking out the tall windows of Lula Drake, the upscale wine parlor he first opened nearly five years ago. “I walk in here every day now, and I think how lucky I am. ... With that, came just the realization that it could just as easily be taken away from you.”
In June, Gardner will reopen Lula Drake, his “dream place,” for the first time since March 2020.
The new Lula will look very much like the old Lula, but with a few subtle changes: An expanded wine-by-the-glass selection, the addition of a small selection of top-shelf liquors, a few more tables outdoors, a few new faces on staff (along with many returning staff members), and a more limited food menu while Gardner searches for a new kitchen manager.
When the doors reopen, Lula Drake will rejoin a downtown scene that’s bounced back better than some imagined after near desertion during the depths of the pandemic. National experts predicted last year that thousands of small businesses across the country would permanently close as a result of COVID-19. Many have, but the vast majority of local businesses in downtown Columbia appear to have found their way back in recent months.
What’s more, new ones are even in the works: Lula Drake soon will have a new neighbor in the 1600 block of Main, a barbecue-and-oyster venture called Smoked, expected to open later this year.
“I’m thrilled that everybody didn’t pack up and say, ‘I’m done with this,’” Gardner said. “It’s such an important thing that we have a healthy restaurant and wine scene, and it’s just now starting.”
There were times late last year when Gardner was not sure Lula Drake would return, he admits. He sold off every bottle from Lula Drake’s wine cellar to help cover expenses through the year, and his landlords were generous with him.
“What I kept thinking about over the course of the year was how grateful I was to all the people that supported us, to be able to say that I opened my dream. And I was OK with the fact that that may be the end of it, that was the run, that was it. And I reached a point where I was OK with that,” Gardner said.
The wine parlor’s fate from here on depends on whether folks come back, Gardner said.
A firm reopening date in June has not yet been set.
