A wine and charcuterie bar – with a twist – is coming to the South Side.
Kay Roebuck came up with the idea for Le Porc, a wine bar that will feature charcuterie, and charcuterie board-building classes, while in quarantine during the pandemic.
“The restaurant idea kind of came out of nowhere,” Roebuck says. “In the beginning of COVID, the really hard months, when everyone was inside all the time, I wanted to figure out something to do in my spare time, and I started looking up different recipes to put on a charcuterie board.”
Over the course of the next few months, Roebuck scoured Pinterest and blogs, and began experimenting with creating her own cheese and charcuterie boards. She enjoyed the activity so much, she thought that other people would, too – and a business was born.
“I just thought it would be such a fun idea if you had a place that would teach you to put together a charcuterie board hands-on, instead of just using these random recipes online,” she says. “And I thought it would make a really great activity for people to do together.”
Roebuck spent “about one night” working on a business plan, and started speaking with people in the restaurant and bar industry to see if her idea was worth pursuing.
“Every person that I reached out to never told me that I was doing anything wrong,” she says. “So I kept moving it forward.”
Le Porc, which will be located at The Highline on the South Side in the space next to Gabriella’s Gourmet, will operate as a wine and charcuterie bar that will be open to the public during the week. On the weekends, groups will be able to rent out the space to have a board-building party.
“We’ll be working with local farms and farmers markets to get all of the board ingredients,” Roebuck says. “We want everything to be fresh and seasonal, so you can come at different times during the year and enjoy a different board.”
The charcuterie boards will change seasonally, and Roebuck says that the wine list will also include locally-made wines.
Roebuck is currently waiting for the liquor license to come in, and contending with shipping delays for products and furniture, but says that she hopes that the space will be open this summer.
Follow Le Porc on Instagram for the latest updates.
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