Pure Wine Cafe Building Patio Overlooking Main Street

Pure Wine Café on Main Street is probably best known for its cozy quarters.

The tight interior of the restaurant fits 32 seats at tables and its rectangular bar. But by mid-May the restaurant plans to open its new expansion—an upstairs dining room and an outdoor patio—that will add 40 new seats to the restaurant.

“We’ve been ready to expand for a couple years now,” said P.J. Strain, the owner, who opened the restaurant, his first, along with his friend and chef Kevin Brothers in 2009.

“They’re not going to be huge spaces, but we’ll utilize them well,” said Strain.

The highlight of the expansion is the 20-seat patio, dubbed a “secret wine garden” by Strain, that when finished will be framed by landscaping and offer diners a raised view of Main Street.

“I want people to slightly forget where they are,” said Strain, who likened the old buildings on Main Street to that of Paris or Rome and added that the raised patio will act “as a billboard for itself.”

Strain said he worked with the owners of the building, Alexander Design Studio, to develop the expansion plans. Their work was made more difficult by the nature of the historic building, which is made out of stone and sits on granite, according to Strain.

In addition to the patio and dining room, there will be a new bathroom, a wine cellar inside a room featuring a large granite rock, which is visible from a staircase and an expanded kitchen.

Because the kitchen doesn’t have a hood, Brothers has worked with a Turbo Chef, a small fast-cooking oven. The kitchen expansion will give the restaurant enough space to add another turbo chef to meet the new demand, according to Strain. The restaurant is looking to hire three to five new employees as part of the expansion.

Strain said the updates will stay true to the theme of the current restaurant.

“We want to provide that modern feel to an old building.”