by Kristen Wile

Biblio, the wine-focused sister concept to Counter-, will close its doors following service on Saturday, Dec. 9. The West Charlotte space, which is shared with Counter-, will undergo some changes over the coming weeks before reopening, though details on its upcoming use are not yet finalized. Some areas of the restaurant will host portions of the Counter- dining experience. 

“We didn’t really have everything set up the way that we wanted to at the beginning, which didn’t set us up strongly,” Hart says. The restaurant was delayed months in its opening, and money that would have gone to its interior instead went to paying staff during that lag. The result, Hart says, was that the restaurant’s seating didn’t quite match the vision he had in mind for years. 

The closure comes after several adjustments to the concept to make it more sustainable, says chef/owner Sam Hart. The restaurant opened with a wine-first ordering system, where guests selected wine and chefs created a tasting menu to pair with that wine. More traditional tasting menus have been offered for several months, but Biblio remained a drain on both finances and staff, as Hart was stretched between both concepts. 

“It didn’t have the pressure to make money, but then the pressure became, well, we can’t lose this much money,” Hart says. “And so we changed up the concept a little bit; we worked with it a little bit. We actually changed up a lot and worked with it a lot. But then at the same time, Counter- was and is growing so much that it was kind of bursting at the seams.”

The style of the menu also was difficult to make sustainable, as creating menus based on wine allowed for little predictability — and as a result, more food waste.  

The staff at Biblio has the option to remain working at Counter-. The closure of Biblio comes amid growth, as well, with food stall Maneki, led by chef Kenny Do, opening early next year in Uptown. For Hart, a James Beard Award finalist, the experience with Biblio comes with valuable insight.

“The biggest lesson that I learned is: not every single idea that you have is going to be a great idea,” they say. “And you need to be willing to work with it and acknowledge when an idea isn’t the best. As a cook, you realize pretty quickly based upon the reactions in the room if a dish is a hit or a mjss, and you adjust it and you change it. But when it comes to a concept that you’ve thought about for years, you think to yourself, ‘Well, if I thought about it and planned it and had this for so long, there’s no way it’s not going to be successful.’ And you just have to acknowledge that.”

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