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App-driven Wine Riot store quietly leaves the South End

Boston Restaurant Talk reports that Wine Riot, a Tremont Street shop catering to Millennials who'd rather order wine through an app than talking to somebody in a store, is quietly going away, to be replaced by a store blandly called Wine Gallery.

The Boston Licensing Board approved Wine Riot after a, well, riotous hearing in which wine-seekong Millennials verbally duked it out with older residents, competing liquor stores and Mayor Walsh.

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Comments

Is the bubble bursting?

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2 of 3 times I tried to purchase beer, it wasn't in the system. They had to call someone to determine the price.

I understand that beer isn't in their wheelhouse, but how can a store put product on the shelf without having it in their inventory or pricing system? Poor business practice.

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South Enders petitioned the city to allow this store to go in, against Mayor Walsh's wishes.

Whatever made those residents sign the petition didn't seem to translate to business.

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South Enders did not petition in favor but against the wine riot
The people in favor were not local residents but friends and employees of the wine rioters
The neighborhood showed strong opposition towards it and they were right!!

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and that's how the free market works. If someone has a business idea, it's not up to neighbors to decide whether they "need" the service provided. That's decided by demand. Had Wine Riot outperformed Wine Gallery and a Wine Gallery had closed, what would the neighbors be saying?

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are just sour grapes.

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I guess I can understand why some people were seeing red, but others seeing this store leave must be crushed.

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is a zin against decent, hard-working millenials.

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The one person who used the system will just have go somewhere else to wine about it.

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This noir anything else will affect us on the quest to find the perfect glass!

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Buying wine isn't like ordering a cab - sauv the app stuff for places where it makes sense.

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.. is e-grigio-ous!

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As my Mom always used to say, que syrah, syrah

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Intellectual laziness at it's finest. Report on someone else's story that itself is based on a Tweet with zero pertinent information. Great service to our SE community! Nothing like writing for the sake of writing, oh wait... you get brownie points for putting out "information" and you appear in Google search. Self-serving at it's finest.

Personally I can appreciate a store where you can always find a nice bottle of wine, where you don't have homeless and drunks hanging out in front of the front door. If the new ownership maintains the look and feel of the store, then all the better for everyone. But then again, where is the "news" in that?

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I don't care.

It's called "aggregation" and I've been doing it a long time - I link to stuff I think my readers might find interesting. And I don't pull in a lot of details because I want people to go to the original source - I don't pull that crap that other sites do of "excerpting" so much that there's no reason for you to view the source article.

But do be a dear and click on the link to the report about the original "riotous hearing" on Wine Riot - it's something you could only read here because I'm typically the only reporter who ever covers their hearings. Live, in person, and with my reporter's notebook at the ready - although I usually keep my notes on the handy multi-page agendas the board hands out (Boston Magazine did have a story, but it was based on talking just to the Wine Riot guy the next day).

Of course, you won't, so instead be a dear and stop reading stuff on this site. It obviously annoys you to no end, and life is too short to spend time wiping spittle off your monitor as you rant about a Web site you hate.

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give this dude his money back.

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It was a good idea and something different in the area. At least Wine Riot was attempting to be different, have wines that have a story behind them. Its too bad Tyler and Morgan were not the face of the store, think it would of done much better since they are well known faces. The Wine Emporium down the street is a typical wine store, nothing special, all big brands and they pay there staff very little. Having Wine Gallery in that space is not going to do much better, they don't pay there bills on time, only work with there own distribution company which carry meh! wines. Hope Tyler and Morgan are doing well and looking forward to there next venture. Can you tell I work in the industry!

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it may have been a good idea, but they never followed through. Tyler and Morgan were gone pretty quick with other people running the store. I don't know if they ever had an app - the one app available is geared towards their events - there is no app to help you navigate the store.

The shelves were never filled - they always looked about to go out of business. They had wine tastings "7 days a week", yet most of the time there weren't any people tasting. My friends who are wine experts told stories of going into the store to fine the employees knowing nothing about a wine except to read the card that was on the wall.

So while it was a nice concept, it looks like they didn't do anything except open the doors and expect the Wine Riot event crowd to come streaming in. (did they ever even advertise the store to their WR event customers after the big 'opening' announcement??)

I mean honestly, a store that's selling wine, beer and a small liquor selection went out of business in under a year. You almost have to work to make that happen.

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