One of the things Sarah Pierre, proprietor of 3 Parks Wine Shop in Atlanta, learned from years in the restaurant industry was never to say no to a customer. If that meant sending someone to run down the street to buy theater tickets so a dallying diner wouldn’t miss their show or running to the supermarket to grab an ingredient that would delight a guest, Pierre did it. When she opened 3 Parks in 2013 with a determination to do things differently, she brought this ethos.
So, she always said yes to her customers and found ways to surprise and delight. She’ll note when a regular customer has a baby and then, years later when those birth vintages came into the shop, she’d let them know she’d put aside a special bottle for them. (This is beyond next-level calendar-remindering.) As Pierre remembers, the lesson she learned long ago was: “The answer is yes, what’s the question?”
The only real limit was space. “For us at 3 Parks, the only time we ever really had to say no was when someone was like, ‘I want to host an event.’ or ‘Can I have my birthday party here?’ ‘I want to propose to someone,’” says Pierre. “We just didn’t have the space to accommodate people and private events and parties during the day.” And tastings would pack the store—with a line of people streaming onto the sidewalk.
The opening of a second 3 Parks location this past November remedies those issues. Custom-designed by Pierre to do it all, including accommodating day-time events and larger tastings, it benefits from 10 years of learnings from running a retail wine shop at the hub of Atlanta’s burgeoning wine scene.
Over that time Pierre has built the type of clout where she can convince a distributor to bring on a brand she wants to carry so she can stock it. But at the heart of 3 Parks is its eclectic and curated wine selection, wildly popular wine club and welcoming atmosphere that all add up to a shop that Demario Wallace, beverage director at Oliva Restaurant Group, calls his favorite wine shop in the country.
Donae Burston, La Fete Wine Company founder and CEO (and himself an influential member of the wine community) calls “3 parks is a cornerstone of East Atlanta and the overall wine community in Atlanta,” and adds “It is truly much more than a typical wine shop and it all starts with Sarah.
When Pierre first opened in 2013, she did not have the benefit of that experience and just saw a void. “My mission was to open a store that my friends wanted to come to, that everybody wanted to come to, and that’s what I did,” she says. From the start, the store was more than a place to buy booze. “We started hosting wine tastings right away. They weren’t formal by any means. The music was on, and it was kind of like this little party.”
As Burston puts it, “She has created that neighborhood coffee shop vibe but in a wine shop.”
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The other issue Pierre saw back then was that wine was perceived as a bit stuffy and standoffish. “The problem that I was solving was making wine approachable, making wine fun, diversifying wine, making wine inclusive,” Pierre says. “It was mostly just, like, how do we get people to enjoy this incredible product?”
She sees the tasting and events that are the hallmark of 3 Parks as being very much about access. She doesn’t think wine needs to feel intimidating, though recognizes it can. She wants, if they take nothing else away from her events, for everyone who attends to feel comfortable ordering off a wine list when they leave—so they won’t be shut out. “The business deals happen at a dinner table,” she says, just as “business deals happen on the golf course, on the tennis courts—but to be the person who’s afraid to speak up or even afraid to be able to hold the wine list, I hate that for them.”
For successfully modeling a truly accessible and community-driven wine retail business, Wine Enthusiast is proud to honor 3 Park Wine Shop with the Wine Star Award for Retailer of the Year.
Last Updated: November 7, 2023
