A nationally recognized wine shop in Boston known for its uniquely curated selection has been forced to shut down after more than a decade.
The Urban Grape in the South End said in an Instagram post Wednesday, Oct. 8. that the store closed due to failed negotiations with the store’s lender.
“This has been a very difficult year for our company,” owners TJ and Hadley Douglas wrote in the post. “For over 12 months, TJ and I, along with our family and a group of wonderful investors, have worked tirelessly to reach an agreement with our local SBA lender, Cambridge Savings Bank, with the hope of saving and rebuilding the store to its former inventory and success.”
They continued, “Unfortunately, negotiations with our lender deteriorated over the past week, and we are being forced to close The Urban Grape’s Boston location immediately.”
Loyal patrons left supportive comments on the Instagram post such as, “Sending big love to you both. This could not have been easy. We’ll follow you anywhere and everywhere.”
TJ and Hadley Douglas opened The Urban Grape in 2010 and became the first store in the country to utilize the Progressive Scale. The scale categorizes wine by its body — from light-bodied to full-bodied — instead of by varietal or region.
In addition to selling products, The Urban Grape hosted routine tastings and doubled as a private event space. The Douglases also founded The Urban Grape Wine Studies Award for Students of Color, which “has provided paid, hands-on job training, education, and career opportunities for 12 recipients who have gone on to have an impact on the industry as a whole,” according to the Instagram post.
“In the 13 years that The Urban Grape South End has been in business, we’ve sold nearly $50,000,000 worth of wine, spirits and beer to our customers; held well over 1500 public wines tastings; donated money and auction items to local non-profits, schools, and marathon fundraising auctions…and employed countless employees at above market wages with access to health care and a 401k,” The Urban Grape’s Instagram post reads. “During COVID, we provided jobs to out-of-work hospitality workers, raised $150,000 for struggling restaurants, and another $250,000 to begin an endowment at Boston University that funds The Urban Grape Wine Studies Award for Students of Color.”
Aside from local victories, The Urban Grape is one of the most successful independently-owned wine stores in the country. The shop was named the United States Small Business of the Year in 2021 and has been nationally profiled in Food & Wine, The New York Times, NPR, Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast. The Urban Grape is also a four-time Top 100 Wine Retail Store in America winner, two-time Wine Enthusiast Wine Star Nominee, five-time ICIC Inner City 100 winner and six-time Best of Boston winner.
“We opened The Urban Grape to build community through beverage, and oh, how we have done that,” the Instagram post continued. “We’ve lost track of the number of people who have met at our tastings and gone on to get married, then brought their new babies back to those same tastings. We’ve mourned with beloved customers who have lost a spouse, and turned to us for a bottle of wine to toast their memory. We’ve led the way in building a store where on any given day you can find all age ranges from Gen Z to Boomers, and people of all races and orientations, talking, laughing, and learning about wine. In a city like Boston, where too often we all retreat to our corners, our legacy was bringing everyone together around one table.”
Despite the store’s closing, the Douglases vowed that this will not be the end of their legacy.
“We will gather around our tasting table again, Boston. You can count on it,” the couple wrote in the Instagram post.
Therefore, Patrons were encouraged to subscribe to The Urban Grape’s Substack newsletter, “The Second Bottle,” and follow the brand on Instagram for future updates.
The Urban Grape was located at 303 Columbus Ave., Boston.