“Like all good stories, it starts with a glass of wine,” said Katy Thayer.
She and her business partner, Michelle Manware, own Uva Wine Bar in Mashpee and Plymouth, the only self-serve wine bars in Massachusetts. Their children went to preschool together, and they became best friends who travel together.
“We were on vacation on Grand Cayman Island, and on a cloudy, rainy day we were trying to think of what to do,” said Thayer. “Somebody suggested we go to this wine bar/liquor store that had a cool self-serve feature. We’re like, that sounds too good to be true. We went and it was great. We came home, put together a business plan, and it all came together.”
Manware said they were certain from the start that they had a promising idea. “We got back from that trip and it was full throttle,” she said. “Eighteen months later, we opened our doors for our Plymouth location. We were right. People were very open to the concept, not just the customers, but all of the authorities that govern alcohol in the state.”
When you arrive at Uva (the name means grape in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish), the first step is to check in with the hostess to start a tab and get a laminated card that you can use at the wine dispensers. Wave the card over a reader, put your glass under a spout, and select a two-, four- or six-ounce pour.
“We have 48 wines from all around the world from smaller, boutique, family-owned vineyards,” said Thayer. There’s a mix of whites, rosés and reds, as well as some higher-end reserves. “Six ounces is an industry standard at a restaurant for a pour, but this way if you get a two-ounce pour, you can see if you like the wine,” she said. “You can try a wine that you would not have tried or something that’s somewhat similar but different from what you know you like. It gets you out of your comfort zone, which is what I want people to do all the time.
“We have five or six, sometimes seven cabernets. Do you like a California cab or do you want a French cab, which is pretty different? They can get two ounces and see if they like it and then move on if they don’t. It’s only two ounces, so it only costs you a few bucks.”
The dispensers have clear panels where you can see each bottle’s label. A card for each bottle includes information about each wine’s region, grape varietal, and tasting notes from the winemaker. Prices are by the ounce, so a four-ounce pour is twice as much as a two-ounce taste. A standard wine bottle contains 750 milliliters or just over 25 ounces, so the dispenser is programmed to charge down to a tenth of an ounce when a bottle runs dry. When that happens, a red light on the dispenser signals the staff to add a new bottle.
The dispensers are hooked up to a system that replaces oxygen with argon as the bottles empty, preserving the wine for up to 60 days. The argon comes from a company in New Bedford that primarily supplies the gas to welders but has a food-quality grade that’s 99.9 percent pure.
Manware described the wine bar as “a very self-directed concept” that’s pressure-free. “Customers don’t have to make rush decisions, and they don’t have to invest a lot of money making those decisions,” she said. “They’re able to just relax and enjoy their time, and that’s what it’s really all about.”
The Mashpee location has seating for 32 inside and 29 in the wine garden. There’s a small bar where you can order beer, bubbly and mocktails. A few special events are on the schedule, including National Wine and Cheese Day (July 25) and National Prosecco Day (August 13). The bar recently hosted a Nantucket bracelet workshop.
Left: Michelle Manware (l) and Katy Thayer outside their unique wine bar at Mashpee Commons. Center: Select the items you’d like for your charcuterie board. Right: The choice of wines to sample and enjoy awaits self-service tasters at Uva.
Manware previously worked in women’s healthcare as a physician’s assistant, and Thayer owned a marketing and PR agency. “We were both kind of at a crossroads in our life,” said Thayer. “Our careers were good, we’d raised our kids and we were looking for something different. Then this presented itself.”
Thayer focuses on marketing and staffing, while Manware is Uva’s food and wine director. “I have developed very close relationships with close to a dozen distributors,” said Manware. “I am tasting wine frequently from all of them in order to keep an ever-changing wine list available to customers.”
The newest part of the company is the Uva Boutique, which opened in May next to the wine bar at Mashpee Commons. “Over the years,” Manware said, “countless times customers will say, ‘I love this wine. Where can I buy it? Where can I find it?’ And my answer has been, ‘You can’t buy it here because we have a pouring license, and I do not know where you could purchase it outside of here because it’s a curated list.’ The boutique is just like any other wine shop, but the basis of it was to fulfill the need to offer the majority of our wines for that customer who falls in love with a wine and wants to buy a bottle for themselves or to give as a gift.”
The Plymouth bar opened in 2019 and the Mashpee bar opened in 2024. Both faced immediate challenges.
“We opened in Plymouth nine months prior to the Covid close down,” said Manware. “It was widely received by thousands of customers in that first nine months, and then when we reopened, everybody came back out to support us.”
Thayer said they’d always planned to open a second location. “With the pandemic, it just took a little bit longer than we thought. It was all about finding the best location. We wanted to be in a place where there was really good foot traffic and where we are around other restaurants because we’re not a full-service restaurant.” Uva serves flatbread pizzas, chips and dips, charcuterie boards and several desserts. “We have food, but it is food that complements the wine as opposed to a restaurant that has a really good wine list,” said Thayer.
The Mashpee bar opened the day after last Christmas. “We missed all the holiday shopping, and then we went right into dry January, which is a thing, unfortunately,” said Thayer. We all know things get a bit slow around here February through April. “I’m not complaining because we’ve been full Friday and Saturday nights,” said Thayer. “We’re looking forward to being full Monday through Sunday.”
Uva Wine Bar
4 Market Street, Mashpee
UvaWineMashpee.com
