Austin, TX | Fine Dining Restaurant | Wine Club Subscription

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Key Results

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• Highest active membership in the club's 3-year history, proving growth and long-term retention 
• Wine club members visiting the restaurant more often, including guests who rarely came in before joining
• Pairing and production notes read and requested by members, turning a written extra into a genuine motivator for the team

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A cellar built from the values of the kitchen

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Bryce Gilmore has run Barley Swine as his answer to Austin farm-to-table cooking since 2010. It's a tasting-menu restaurant built on relationships with regional growers, and since 2023, it's had its own working farm in Dale, Texas, to grow alongside those partnerships. Stefan Davis, the restaurant's General Manager and Sommelier, runs the wine program with the same values that shape the kitchen.

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"Sustainable growers, growing organically or biodynamically, small producers with an emphasis on regenerative farming, keeping the operation small, keeping it in the family," Stefan says of what he looks for in his wine. "We source from local farmers here, and we actually have a farm ourselves, so it's important for us to source our wines in the same manner."

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The cellar is also always evolving. Stefan and his AGM, who holds a sommelier title as well, keep chasing new producers, from more classic names to independent winemakers working out of a garage. The throughline is a program with personality, curated by people who taste with intention rather than filling slots on a list.

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Extending the pour beyond the dining room

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But not every guest who loves Barley Swine's wine can make it in for the tasting menu or the pairing. Some come with company that isn't up for a full bottle, others simply live too far, or don't have a night free. But Stefan had regulars, and plenty of newer fans, who wanted that experience of Barley Swine's wine even when they couldn't be in the dining room.

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That was the opening for the club. Stefan wanted a new revenue stream for the restaurant, but he also wanted another outlet for the wine program, and a way to reach guests who couldn't always come to him.

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"It's another way for Barley Swine to express itself. And it's hospitality in somebody's home, which I thought was intriguing."

— Stefan Davis, General Manager & Sommelier, Barley Swine

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Launching the club also gave Stefan a reason to push the restaurant in new directions and learn new things. He describes wanting the program to make the whole operation a bit more expansive, a bit more experimental, and the club became the outlet for exactly that.

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Partnering to scale with a small team

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Stefan is candid that he didn't expect much when the club launched. "Honestly, I'm the kind of guy that thinks that nobody's going to pay attention to us, and then all of a sudden, it kind of blew up," he says. Membership has recently climbed to the highest it's ever been in their 3-year club tenure, and the team has had a new challenge in figuring out how to scale comfortably while keeping the same level of care in every shipment.

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That growth landed on a small team, with just Stefan and his co-manager Kat handling the day-to-day restaurant operations. For a stretch, Stefan ran the club largely on his own, on top of everything else, while raising two kids at home. Marketing and outreach from Table22 took real weight off his plate at exactly the point he needed it most, which is what drew him to the platform in the first place.

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"We're a mom and pop restaurant. For a while, it was just me running the club. I don't have a lot of time to focus on the wine club solely. And so [Table22] helps out a ton. Marketing, outreach, being receptive. It's really very helpful for me, which is why I initially went with you guys. And it's paying off."

— Stefan Davis, General Manager & Sommelier, Barley Swine

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Notes that become dialogue

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Every shipment comes with pairing notes and production notes that Stefan and his team write themselves. He admits he went in expecting the effort to go mostly unnoticed. Instead, members write back specifically to say how much they value them.

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"We're going to put forth the effort and we're going to go do as much as we can, but nobody's probably going to read them," Stefan says of his early expectations. "And then we get the feedback. People saying, ‘I really love your pairing notes, I really love the production notes.’ It really cheers us on and gives us motivation to go that extra mile again and again for them."

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Members text him directly, too, when a bottle lands well. "That one was a banger, let's do that again," is the kind of message Stefan says he loves getting. "That's always really gratifying to know that they thought about it so much, and it gave them so much pleasure that they decided to give that feedback."

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Bringing guests full circle

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Stefan expected the club to be an extension of the restaurant's hospitality into people's homes, and was pleasantly surprised to see how much it also worked in reverse, pulling members back into the dining room.

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Club members who walk into Barley Swine for dinner immediately felt more connected: bubbles sent to the table without being asked, a conversation about wine that starts before the menu even arrives, a sense of being a bit more part of the family. Stefan credits this dynamic with regulars coming in even more frequently, and guests who used to visit once or twice a year are now stopping by more often to pick up their orders. Significantly, people who had never set foot in Barley Swine before are showing up specifically to experience the wine program in-person.

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"People who come in maybe once or twice a year will come in more often because they're picking up their order. And people who never came to visit our building are coming in to experience Barley Swine's wine."

— Stefan Davis, General Manager & Sommelier, Barley Swine

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What's next for the cellar

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Stefan isn't slowing down the hunt for interesting bottles, and he's using the club's momentum to keep pushing the program toward more exclusive, harder-to-find allocations while still leaving room for the small producers he started with. When other operators ask him about starting a club of their own, his advice is straightforward: reach out, see how much freedom the platform gives you to build something that reflects your own restaurant, and go for it. For Barley Swine, that combination of freedom and support turned a side project into one of the most reliable ways new and longtime guests experience the restaurant's wine.

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Our platform, your bottles. Welcome to the club.

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