By WILL BRUMLEVE
will@fordcountychronicle.com
PAXTON — Lisa Allen has not had much downtime this month. A special education teacher at Paxton-Buckley-Loda High School by day, Allen has been working three nights a week, too, at her newly opened wine bar in downtown Paxton: the Prairie City Wine Room.
“To begin with, it’s been a little bit stressful — I’m not going to lie — to get things going,” Allen said Thursday night while bartending in the wine room at 155 N. Market St. in the historical Commandery Building. “But I’ve got great staff. I’m really pleased with my staff, and they’re just going to make it that much easier to keep going forward with this.”
Six staff members have been working alongside Allen at the Prairie City Wine Room each Thursday, Friday and Saturday since its Nov. 3 “soft opening,” with Allen there every night except for one — Saturday, Nov. 12 — when she was able to “sneak away” to see the Fighting Illini football game against Purdue.
Because of the demands of starting her own business while continuing to be employed full-time by the PBL school district, Allen is having to limit the wine room’s hours open to three days per week — from 4 to 10 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and from 1 to 10 p.m. Saturdays.
“I can’t retire yet,” she noted. “I can’t quit my day job.”
In the limited time it is open, though, the Prairie City Wine Room has been a hit. Featuring a variety of wines available by the bottle or glass, the wine room also offers wine slushies, several domestic beers, several regional craft beers and a small food menu that includes pretzels, cheese and crackers.
“We offer wines by the glass — we do 6-ounce and 9-ounce pours — and we also do wine by the bottle — you can take a bottle of wine out the door with you for a gift or your own pleasure,” Allen said. “We have a variety of white wines, red wines and a couple of rosas. They range anywhere from sweet to dry. There’s really quite a variety, with reasonable prices.”
For wine slushies, there will be featured flavors that change regularly.
“Today we are featuring Sangria and apple toddy,” Allen said Thursday night. “Pretty much weekly — or at least every month — there should be a different variety available.”
As for beer: “We have four different taps of beer and a selection of beer in cans and bottles,” Allen said.
An assortment of cheese spreads and half-pound blocks of cheese are available, as well, along with sleeves of crackers, giant pretzels and small pretzels.
“There are 12 different varieties of cheese blocks and three different varieties of cheese spreads,” Allen said. “You can get a sleeve of crackers to kind of serve yourself.”
Eventually, Allen said, the plan is to have charcuterie boards available, too.
“For the charcuterie boards, the cheese would already be sliced along with a selection of meats … on the tray,” Allen said.
Live music will be featured at the wine room on occasional Saturdays, too, Allen said. This past Saturday, Paxton resident Jimm Wood performed MTV-era hits inside the venue.
The wine room is located in newly renovated space on the first floor of the 137-year-old Commandery Building — owned by Paxton natives and current Florida residents Jeff and John Grove — featuring a restored original tin ceiling, wood flooring and brick walls. Allen, who is renting the space from the Grove brothers, said she loves it.
“They’ve done a lot of awesome work to make it look this amazing,” Allen said, adding that the cabinetry behind the bar is custom hand-made. “I’m very, very grateful to the Groves for creating this space and allowing me to have this business here. … This would not be possible without the Grove brothers. They are a big part of this, and I am so grateful for them allowing my dreams of having something like this come true.”
A lifelong resident of Paxton, Allen said the wine room’s name pays tribute to Paxton’s original name. The small Swedish settlement was first known as Prairie City before it later was renamed Prospect City and then finally became known as Paxton in 1859, a dozen years before it was incorporated as a city.
Allen said the nod to Paxton’s history seemed appropriate given the Groves’ efforts to restore and improve the Commandery Building and other historical buildings they have purchased in Paxton’s downtown within the past year.
“It felt like the intent of the Groves was to bring a lot of things back to their historical value,” Allen said, “and I just thought the name fit in with that, as well.”
Currently in the midst of a “soft opening,” Allen said a grand opening and Paxton Area Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting event for the wine room is planned for Saturday, Nov. 26 — the same day as Paxton’s annual Christmas parade — with the time yet to be determined.
So far, the community’s response to the wine room has been “great” and business has been “pretty steady,” said Allen, who credited the help of staff members Brenda Frichtl, Vicky St. Peter, Ellen Lee, Deb Jarboe, Sara Thompson and Deane Geiken.
“There has been a very positive response from the community so far; I think a lot of people are excited,” said Allen, the 1994 Ford County Fair queen who is the daughter of Janet and Carl Hudson Jr. and wife of Scott Allen, owner of Paxton Hardware & Rental. “Hopefully the word will get out further by word-of-mouth and whatnot. But, so far, business has been pretty steady. There’s always people in here — and people from out of town, I’ve noticed, as well — so I’ve been happy with the response so far.”