Terra Wine Bar Closes Doors To Renovate

By Amber Lester Kennedy Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Terra of Williamsburg will be renovated to look like the new Hampton location, shown above.

The restaurant, which opened in April 2010, will become a more upscale lunch and dinner spot, according to manager Julius Wilson. In the meantime, patrons are encouraged to visit the restaurant’s newly opened second location in Hampton’s Peninsula Town Center, which opened its doors to customers on Jan. 6.

“An unbelievable amount of Williamsburg customers who have come down to see our Hampton location have asked if we were going to do this in Williamsburg,” he says, referring to the slightly swankier aesthetic.

Once renovations are complete, Williamsburg’s Terra will no longer feature a bar devoted solely to coffee, and will have more couch seating, some carpeting and contemporary curtains dividing space, like something one would see in New York, Wilson said. The color scheme will also be adapted to be a little more earthy, yet more upscale, he said. Wilson estimates Terra will reopen its doors at the beginning of March.

Terra was initially conceived to be a coffee and Panini shop by day and a wine bar with tapas by night. To accommodate coffee drinkers, the restaurant opened its doors at 8 a.m., but Wilson says the restaurant will open at 11 a.m. for lunch and dinner when it opens back up for business. He said the coffee side never took off, partially because they didn’t serve a full breakfast, and didn’t see much foot traffic. The restaurant’s Illy Italian roast coffee will still be available to customers, however.

“It was hard, because when you came in, you couldn’t tell if you were in a coffee shop,” he says. “We listened to our customers and we decided to remove the coffee bar and make it look more like a restaurant.”

In July, the restaurant tweaked its menu to allow patrons to better customize their orders. Tapas items were adapted to come in three sizes, coming with two, four or six small bites, depending on how many people wanted to share. If someone wanted to have a bigger meal, he or she could request some popular tapas items as big plate meals.

Patrons have enjoyed using the store’s Napa wine dispensers, which allow customers to sample tastes, half-glasses or full-glasses of wine bottles. The customers put money on cards that resemble credit cards, starting at a minimum of $20. Both restaurant locations feature the dispensers.

Chef Troy Buckley, educated at the Culinary Institute of Pittsburgh, will continue to act as head chef at both locations, splitting his time between Hampton and Williamsburg while training staff. “We’ll have the same offerings at both locations,” Wilson said. “We want customers to feel like they’re in the same place, with just a couple of unique differences.”