Wine and Design Opening in West Ashley

Some spots in West Ashley don't stay vacant long.

Wine and Design will be opening Friday at 1331 Ashley River Road, formerly the home of Local Market and Cafe which closed a few months ago. The blue building between Lango Avenue and Playground Road previously held Muddy Waters, another coffee shop, and before that natural foods store Raspberry's.

Now it will hold the area's third "sip and paint" industry establishment to open within the past couple of months. and both opened in May.

Wine and Design provides the studio space, an artist to lead the lesson and all the painting supplies customers will need to create their own masterpiece. Customers, either as individuals or in groups, sign up for a class through the company's website and are free to bring beer or wine with them to the lesson.

owner Heather Speizman, who converted her Bottles 'n Brushes location to Wine and Design in November 2011, is also helping Wine and Design expand its franchising opportunities in the Southeast. The owner of the new West Ashley location, Sarah Dubay, was one of Speizman's first customers in Mount Pleasant.

No stranger to the industry, Speizman said she looks forward to the healthy competition in the West Ashley area. Speizman helped create Bottles 'n Brushes in 2008 after seeing a similar company created in her native Louisiana by a nieghbor.

"One of the women who created Corks and Canvass in Louisiana was my back door neighbor," Speizman said. "I saw what they were doing and I came back and put my own twist on it."

That unique twist that each of the "sip and paint" establishments in town puts on it's own experience will be the thing that sets each one apart, she said.

"You know, I was the only game in town for a long time," Speizman said. "I think it will be nice to have some healthy competition."

Speizman said the decision to open a West Ashley location was an easy one because people have been asking her for the past four years for one. And since West Ashley is one of the fastest growing portions of the Charleston area the potential market for such companies is large.

"Everyone will have their own style, the style of art that they teach, and some people will like one more than another," she added. "There are a lot of burrito restaurants, now there are a lot of art restaurants."

Like pARTy & Paint and Bottles n' Brushes, Wine and Design will offer a bevy of kids activities and events, including an 8-week summer camp series. The business is divided between the adult sip and paint parties in the evenings and children friendly activities, under the banner Art Buzz Kids, throughout the day. 

Wine and Design will also offer individual art lessons for children through the studio. The company also gets involved with arts programs in local schools.

The adult sessions are $35 per person for a 2-hour session. Kids activities start at $20 per session and vary depending on the activities.

The studio will be open most days from about 10 a.m. to about 10 p.m.