Wine Girl Brings Casual Wine Bar to San Diego

SAN DIEGO – As Trevor and Amy Johnson see it, much about the business of wine can be pretentious and a bit off-putting for people looking for a casual spot to imbibe where they won’t be expected to know a cabernet sauvignon from a chardonnay.

Their solution is Wine Girl, a tasting room of sorts, that offers everything from light spritzers to bubbly champagne and everything in between in a casual setting with beer also on tap.

“We wanted to make a wine bar that was more our style of free flowing, kind of a vacation vibe,” said Trevor Johnson, who grew up in Napa Valley.

“We try to make it fun, try to give people an opportunity to come and enjoy themselves in a nice environment,” Trevor Johnson said. “You don’t have to be a wine lover to become a Wine Girl. We have something for everyone.”

Although Wine Girl has a “girl-centric environment,” according to the company, it also appeals to men with events like Bottle Boys nights.

As the couple describe it, Wine Girl offers people an accessible and approachable wine bar.
“We don’t want to tell you what you should like,” Amy Johnson said. “You should try things. If you don’t like it, try something else and have a lot of fun.”

They opened their first Wine Girl in Scottsdale, AZ, in 2020, a second in Napa Valley in 2023, and in October, brought Wine Girl to San Diego in a 2,400-square-foot former retail store that sold sunglasses in the heart of the Gaslamp Quarter at 460 Fifth Ave.

“San Diego is such a vibrant city, and we can’t wait to welcome guests to sip, savor, and celebrate with us,” Trevor Johnson said, adding that the couple spent more than two years scouting locations and getting the Gaslamp Quarter site ready.

“We clearly had to gut it. It’s a big undertaking,” Trevor Johnson said. “Getting your use permits from a store selling sunglasses to now selling wine and beer and food, it’s a little bit of a lengthy process.”

Trevor Johnson said that he was still tallying up expenses as Wine Girl San Diego opened, but he figured that renovating the building will wind up costing somewhere between $250,000 and $400,000.

“We did have to redo the entire thing and rebuild from scratch,” Trevor Johnson said. “We maxed out every credit card to do it.”

The look of the final product is “very coastal, very open,” Trevor Johnson said.

Wine on Tap

Where the Scottsdale Wine Girl has a pink-dominated color palette and the Napa Wine Girl is predominantly white, Amy Johnson said that the San Diego Wine Girl has a sage and teal color palette, herring bone wood flooring and mother of pearl tiles.

A large storefront window that covered much of the façade was removed, replaced with folding doors to add to the open feel of the wine bar.

Inside, the Johnsons installed a quartz countertop bar with seating for up to 14 people, five banquets and bistro tables.

A “shopping wall” has an assortment of Wine Girl merchandise for sale.

“We design and sell all our own merchandise,” Trevor Johnson said.

The Johnsons also brought in large olive trees and a pair of swings to create a background for customers to take selfie photos.

There’s also a separate room with seating for 10 to 15 people that’s available for special occasions.

“We constantly get people asking for private events,” Trevor Johnson said.
The highlight of Wine Girl San Diego is the 16 wines that are on tap, with varieties constantly rotating.

“We do carry our reserve bottles,” Trevor Johnson said, but he said that the wine on tap accounts for most of Wine Girl’s business.

For Amy Johnson, who lived in San Diego in the early 2000s, it was a bit of a homecoming.

“It’s full circle to come back to a city where I was young and working three jobs and broke,” she said.

Wine Girl
FOUNDED: 2020
HEADQUARTERS: Scottsdale, AZ
CO-FOUNDERS: Trevor and Amy Johnson
BUSINESS: wine bar
EMPLOYEES: 40-50
WEBSITE: www.winegirl.com
CONTACT: [email protected]
NOTABLE: Wine Girl has wine on tap, curated bottle selections, locally crafted beers, and spritzers

A native of New England, Ray Huard has been a reporter at newspapers in California, Florida and New England, including The (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union, the Miami Herald, the Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the North County Times, and the San Diego Business Journal. He has covered a wide variety of beats including real estate, politics, science, the environment, state and city government and courts.