by Jacqueline Pennington

There are few locations in Charlotte as charming as the outdoor patio of the original Dilworth Tasting Room. String lights dangle over the heads of patrons sipping wine around a koi pond and the greenery gives the illusion that you’re tucked far away from the hustle and bustle taking place just a few blocks over in South End. Jaffer Kovic happened upon this location by accident when he was searching for the right place to open his own concept. After a wrong turn and a quick peek in the back patio of the red building off Tremont, he knew he had found something special. 

Kovic is no stranger to the hospitality industry. After falling in love with wine in an elective class at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he found himself working as the assistant sommelier at the Las Vegas Del Frisco’s once he graduated with a hospitality and culinary arts degree. From there, he spent his career working with master sommeliers, spending time in wine sales for a couple of major distributors, and even living out his rock and roll fantasy as a bass player touring with a friends’ band for six months. He eventually landed back in fine dining to manage the wine program for a Sullivan’s Steakhouse opening in Houston. It was there he met his future wife — the person who inspired Kovic to open his own place when they settled in Charlotte several years later. 

In 2016, Kovic opened the first Dilworth Tasting Room, and the neighborhood responded to the warm space and quaint patio by packing the restaurant night after night. A few years later, Kovic began looking at locations for another bar, and Dilworth Tasting Room’s SouthPark location opened in the old Corkbuzz space in 2021. 

“It has been gangbusters since day one when we opened,” Kovic says. “It was a lot of fun opening that store.” That location in particular has an extensive list of 350 bottles, in comparison to the original location that carries about 80. After success with his first two concepts, Kovic opened a third in an old pawn shop space on Central Avenue in Plaza Midwood this past August. 

Here is what a day in his life looks like. 

---

6:30 a.m.: Kovic and his wife start their day like most parents by getting their son and daughter up and ready for school. “I’m normally up at 6/6:30 and I am not a morning person,” Kovic says. “That’s been one of the biggest struggles for me…how does a night person become a morning person? It seems to be impossible. If I don’t have my cup of coffee, forget it. So, I’m out of bed, I wake the kids up, I’m making breakfast for them, getting them ready and then off to school by 7:30.”

---

8:30 a.m.: Once the kids are at school, Kovic shifts gears and settles into his home office to prepare for his day. “I come home, work out for about 35 minutes, shower, and head back downstairs to the office,” Kovic says. “I’ll look at the sales reports from the night before from all three locations. Then, I send them off to the teams, to other managers, and ownership. We review everything from the night before. It takes me roughly an hour.”

---

10 a.m.: Kovic then kicks off the rounds at all three of his locations. He stops by each Dilworth Tasting Room six days a week. 

“Typically, I’ll stop at SouthPark first to make the rounds,” Kovic says. “I’ll be meeting with the management team and meeting with the chef de cuisine. I still like to meet and taste with the suppliers and vendors and that takes about an hour and a half.” 

Kovic is still highly involved in all aspects of his restaurants, including building the wine lists at each location. “I try to stay away from super mainstream wine and I try to stay away from super esoteric ones,” he says when sharing his wine buying strategy. “We look for value, we look for taste, and we look for provenance. And price, obviously, is a big, big factor. If you’re in our Plaza location, you’ll see that the prices are not high. We purposely did that. We went out and found wines that I’m not paying a lot in upfront costs because I don’t want to extend that to the guest. So, we’re trying to find things that move, that people want, and we keep it revolving.”

Once he’s done with any tasting appointments, he’ll move onto his next stop. “I’ll go over to Tremont from there,” he says. “I’m meeting with the chef de cuisine, I’m meeting with the managers, and checking the place out because that particular building takes the most amount of time because it’s an old building. There’s always something to be tinkering with, always something to be fixed. That’s where a lot of my time is spent. Plus, I just enjoy being there. From there, I’ll head over to Plaza Midwood. Again, checking with the teams, checking any issues with the billing, and going over invoices.” 

Kovic emphasized his excitement for the food at his newest location and how they created the menu with Croatian-inspired dishes. “The food’s been pretty tremendous. We sent our chef, Jonathan Shuler, up to New York to work at the most authentic Croatian restaurant there called Dubrovnik in New Rochelle. He spent a lot of time out there learning some of the tricks of what it takes to make Croatian food. We put things on the menu that are authentic, but with chef Jonathan’s flair on it. He’s knocked it out of the park and he’s done an amazing job.”

---

3 p.m.: “Fortunately, I’m able to get out by 3 p.m., because I pick up the kids at the carpool and my daughter’s in gymnastics and ballet and my son is in jiu jitsu and soccer. So, there’s a good amount of time between 3 to 7 p.m. where I’m just in the car driving as a parent Uber taking them around and making sure that they get to where they need to be.” 

---

7 p.m.: Once the kids are back from their activities, the family sits down and enjoys a meal together. “It’s pretty important for us to have dinner together every night,” Kovic says. “My wife is a pretty amazing cook. She does most of the cooking at the house. Then, some nights I’m home with the kids helping out with homework, or I’ll go back to one of the restaurants. Like last night, we had dinner and then I changed and I went to Plaza Midwood, then Tremont, and then came home. I’m typically home by 10. Then, I’ll read for about an hour and I’ll turn in at about 11:30.”

As an owner, Dilworth Tasting Room customers may not expect to see Kovic bringing wine or food to their table, but it’s a part of the job that he loves. “I love being on the floor,” he says. “I love selling wine. I love running food. If I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t have opened three restaurants. This is what I love. Whether I’m expo-ing on the line one night, I’m cooking in the kitchen, I’m on the floor or I’m bartending. That’s what I love to do.”

---