Upstairs Wine Bar is in Colorado Springs neighboring town, Manitou Springs, and just a short drive away and totally worth it for the charming downtown strip. Given our review, you are going to want to make the trek–and you’ll need to know, first and foremost, how to find it! The Upstairs Wine Bar is above the La Baguette bakery; the door to the wine bar is to the left of the storefront and within the confines of their outdoor dining area. It is unsigned, which will make you feel like you are discovering Manitou Spring’s most intimate secret.
They pour more than 70 wines by the glass and more than 100 bottles! Impressive and, frankly, better than what we’ve found in the Springs. They offered a series of wine flights, as well, for those who may be new to wine or feeling indecisive. We were pleased to see some of Cas’ favorites on the menu, so were quite decisive, in fact, even though I love a good flight–always ready to try something new! We were impressed at the quality wines they had considering the mostly affordable prices–most glasses landed between $8-10.
The Upstairs Wine Bar has a cozy feel, as if you were snuggled up in some French chateau, with deep leather couches, cafe tables overlooking the street below, and a gigantic fireplace that, even when unlit, gave an air of comfort and warmth.
We were celebrating Cas’ birthday and they treated us to some fried croissant ends– which were, in the best way possible, little fat bombs in our mouths. We enjoyed the cheese and meat plate and a few glasses of wine. We got excellent suggestions from the server who was knowledgeable about the wines and about her customers. We heard her greet nearly half of the patrons by name and, for some, would even extend her greetings to their not-present relatives. If ever there was a neighborhood wine bar, this would be it. We had a lovely evening and would certainly go back—and recommend it to you!
We did notice that several customers came up to the bar with their checks in hand to pay, presumably after waiting a bit. We also had to prompt the servers for service and we were sitting at the bar. Two people were working the bar and entire floor and one in the kitchen. They had a few systems that seemed to slow them down, like hand-writing the checks and looking up the cost of each drink. We couldn’t help but think that they could use an update to their systems or an additional person to help keep up with everything–they didn’t quite have the seamless flow of a well-oiled wine bar.