Rose Wine Pub

Rose Wine Pub in South Park caught my attention when it opened about 16 months ago. It was a holiday walkabout night and the cozy bar, which seats about 30, was standing-room only. Wanting to get acquainted beyond the pint of IPA I had on my first visit, I returned last month and took bartender Joel’s suggested tour of the menu.

“It’s a nice, quiet place,” says owner Susan Prise, who named the pub after the location’s “historic 1927 Rose Grocery” and her grandmother Rose Miranda.

Void of any sommelier snoot, Rose Wine Pub is a laid-back environment in which to explore boutique wines from around the world to be paired with a menu that adapts monthly to the local market and the ingenuity of Rose’s close-knit staff.

The house specializes in flatbread pizzas, panini, cheeses, and salads, and is as-much-as-possible organic and locally sourced (Rose recently hosted a benefit for the Seeds@City organic garden at City College).

Joel recommended the spicy beef and cauliflower/potato/cheese empanadas with the house chimichurri sauce as an appetizer before bringing out a Polish pesto flatbread (sausage, sundried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and feta) and the seasonal winter squash flatbread (sauceless, kabocha squash, pancetta, carmelized red onion, goat cheese, rosemary, sage, olive oil, garlic).

For dessert, Joel brought out the last of a prickly pear sorbet with dollops of marshmallow cream and chocolate popcorn.

“The cactus apples were wild-harvested by one of the cooks,” he said. “She has the scars to prove it. It’s a definite labor of love.”

In addition to their collection of wines ($6 to $18/glass), Rose offers bottled beers and six drafts, generally including a selection from the neighboring Stone outlet.

At $9 for a six-inch flatbread and $14 for a foot-long, prices are geared toward South Park’s professional crowd without being prohibitive to the neighborhood’s quasi-employed artist and musician community.

Happy hour runs until 6:30 daily with a $5 menu of select wines by the glass and house staples, including bleu chips, mushroom crostinis, margherita flatbread, and “feta-ishes” (grilled pita, feta, honey, and tzatziki sauce).

Restaurant-industry workers can join Joel for an all-day happy hour and board games every Monday.

Hours: Sun–Thurs, 4:30 p.m.–10 p.m.; Fri–Sat, 4:30 p.m.–11 p.m.

Kitchen: closes an hour before the bar

Happy: ’til 6:30 p.m. daily