You don’t need to be a wine fanatic to appreciate the new cellar at Khoury’s Fine Wine & Spirits. “I had a guy in earlier today, sitting at the bar, drinking a beer and just staring at the cellar,” owner Issa Khoury says. “He said, ‘I don’t even drink wine, but I just love staring at that thing.’”
Indeed, the glass-enclosed, bottle-filled room now serves as a visual centerpiece at the 18-year-old shop and watering hole off Eastern Avenue in the southeast Valley. But it’s far from the only noticeable new touch at the recently remodeled and expanded Khoury’s.
Indoor seating has swelled, both by the front of the store and near the bar. The adjacent patio has been extended and equipped with fresh picnic tables and stools. The shop’s inventory of beer, wine and liquor has grown. And neat flourishes, like the made-from-wine-barrels ceiling over the front seating area, dot an interior that feels more open—and more interesting—than ever before.
“The space next door [formerly a photo studio] opened up right before COVID happened, and my landlord asked if I wanted it,” Khoury says. “We held tight throughout COVID, until we got to the point where we were ordering quite a bit of product, because business was kinda going crazy during that time. And after [using the additional space] for storage for a couple months, I realized how much I actually needed and wanted it.”
For Henderson-area drinkers and their counterparts throughout the Valley, Khoury’s has long stood out as a place not just to find unusual syrahs, bourbons and sour beers, but to hang out and sample them. The store’s beer taps have multiplied, from three when Khoury’s introduced the feature in 2010 to a dozen, and now to 20. Special tappings and winemaker events are held regularly, and food trucks rotate through most nights.
But even as the store became a beloved community staple, Khoury says, he felt an internal tug to improve it. “On a busy night, a group would come in, and there’d be no seats available. I didn’t like to see that,” he says. “And sometimes we had stacks of wine and other product everywhere, taking up space that could potentially be seating.
“So after a lot of calculations and talking to my staff—we have developed a really great team—I finally pulled the trigger. We’re very happy we did, and the customers seem to really enjoy it, too.”
Keep an eye out for special releases, like August’s six-way collaboration with CraftHaus Brewery and four local coffee roasters (Bad Owl, Dark Moon, Mothership and Vesta) and anniversary team-ups with Paso Robles wineries Herman Story and Desparada (on a sauvignon blanc) and Downtown’s Able Baker Brewing (a doppelbock aged in three different bourbon barrels), along with special events like December’s rare whiskey raffle, run annually to collect toys for Nevada Safe House. It’s all part of a quest to improve that Khoury calls “ongoing.”
“I’m originally from Elko in northeast Nevada. My dad opened up a small business up there, and he instilled in me at a young age that if you want to grow, you have to connect with the community,” Khoury says. “Vegas has been a transient town over the years, but I feel like, through the pandemic, we’ve really showed that we have a community out here. We have culture, and I feel honored to be part of that and grow with it.”
KHOURY’S FINE WINE & SPIRITS 9915 S. Eastern Ave. #110, 702-435-9463, khourysfinewine.com. Sunday-Tuesday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Wednesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
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