The Wine Guy Bistro Wine Shop & Wine Bar

Really enjoy the food and have always enjoyed the wine on the flights. No real vegan options. Also, if your eating in there is a $ 10 corkage fee! This is even for bottles bought from the wine guy.

Love me some wine and they have an awesome store to get a great selection. Seriously, its awesome.
Food is good, I really miss the chicken fettuccine dish I had here a while back, but I’ve always liked the food well enough to come back. I basically go simply because of the Wine Flights and wine selection, its a bonus that the food is well prepared enough to make the night great.
Totally great date night area.

I have always loved going to WG in a Rookwood. My husband and I went tonight to sit at the bar and have dinner. Wine was great. I always like to get the Ahi Tuna. Alas, they have changed this entre. It is used to be so fresh with a little salad on the side and a wasabi sauce. Please change it back from the yucky soba noodles. I was so disappointed.

We made reservations for 2 hrs after our flight was to get in. Our plan was to check into the hotel, quickly change, then head to the wine bar. Our flight was late. We called them as soon as we touched down to let them know we were running late. The woman who answered the phone was more than understanding and pushed back our reservation by 30 min. On the way their we hit traffic. Again, we called, and again the woman was very understanding. Upon finally arriving, the hostesses seated us and joked with us about getting to the restaurant.
After our stressful afternoon, a flight each was in order. We had read the menu online before making our reservation. We ordered right away the honey ricotta bruscetta, the lamb, and the chicken marsala. The honey ricotta bruscetta was amazing! It was the perfect mix of sweet, savory, creamy & crunchy. The sweet fight paired well with it. I craved it for over a month after dinning here. My husband enjoyed his lamb. He also enjoyed my marsala, even though he doesn’t like mushrooms. The marsala was the best I have ever had. The mushrooms were firm without being chewy. The chicken was moist and flavorable. I wanted to try the dessert, but had absolutely no room. I was in such a food coma, I don’t even remember what he ordered. He said while it was good, it was the only thing that wasn’t amazing.
Tomorrow is our anniversary, and The Wine Bar (as we call it,) was the first place we thought of to celebrate. We are excitedly going to try one of their other location.

This place is the best. My wife and I go here fairly frequently. My favorite dish is the spicy shrimp pasta. It’s a little heavy on the oil, but absolutely decadent. The shrimps are *perfectly* cooked every time. I don’t know how they do it! My wife likes the seafood cioppino (seafood stew pasta), and she has never had a bad experience with that. Meatballs are a great appetizer.
$ 15.00 flights of wine that let you sample 4 different wines. The bottle prices are very reasonable if you have a group or if you go with someone who has the same taste in wine as you.
This is a great place for happy hour or dinner.

So I tried again. Went to the wine shop and bought a bottle of wine. Upon purchase, I asked if it could be chilled, since they have no cold white wine. The person at the register wasn’t sure and had to ask someone. Ok. She came back and said yes. So, given its a WINE shop, I assumed they would use one of those rapid cooling devices that will chill a bottle in a few minutes. Nope. After waiting about 5 minutes, I asked how the wine was being cooled. «In a bucket of ice» was the answer, «but we have coolers for sale». Really. I mean, in the grand scheme of life, not a big deal. But for a wine shop, it’s bush league. It’s just not that hard to do things right, and this place is content with mediocrity

I have been there twice now and thoroughly enjoyed both of my experienced. The food was delicious, as was the wine. My server was very knowledgable and willing to help me find the perfect pairing. I even ended up taking a bottle home with me. I recommend the spicy shrimp pasta– it’s my favorite.

I like this place and was torn on 3 or 4 stars… but after weighing the pros and the cons… I thought it deserved 4 stars.
Pros:
Gluten free menu!
Great tasting food, with good presentation
Friendly service (however not always that attentive… our appetizer came after our meals arrived)
Cozy atmosphere
(Groupon deal used)
Location
Wine Flights
Cons:
For the amount of wine and the name, they don’t have a lot of options for wines by the glass
No happy hour (that I’m aware of… but I won’t base my rating on this)
$ 10 corkage fee (this biggest reason they lost a star).
The have a lot of great wines and prices higher than stores like Party Source and liquor stores and still charge $ 10 corkage fee :-(
Overall I like it and I’ll be back (especially if there is another Groupon-​like deal)

I feel compelled to review a retail establishment whenever the experience is inordinately good or inordinately bad. Last night’s experience at the newer WG location downtown (better know as Wine Guy Bistro) fell into the latter category. It was just an all-​around BAD experience.
The quality of service can make or break a consumer’s experience. For example, a quality server can charm me into lapping up the wrong item that I’ve waited an excessive time for. Unapologetically rude, crappy, ignorant service will destroy even a competently prepared meal. For WG, they needed to focus less on a quasi-​transformative name change and more on training skilled servers prior to opening downtown at The Banks, where there is a hubbub of fantastic restaurants boasting delicious food and drink pairings.
My fiancée and I met up with another couple at WG at The Banks because it was one of a few restaurants that had last-​minute reservations available (I won’t overly-​emphasize the implication of this). We sat first at the bar and ordered some cheese and meat plates and drinks while waiting for our table (I don’t know why we had to wait, since the restaurant was not busy, likely due to the Chesney concert that evening). I’m not a wine drinker, but my companions are skillful with wine and made selections they were happy with. I enjoyed the artful and tasty cheese plates. However, our bartender was just confused. He would wander around the restaurant looking lost. When the other three members of my party asked for food and wine suggestions, his response was «I don’t know… everything here is good.» The guys later had to chase him down to close the tabs once our table was ready.
The final moment of ultimate indignation came from my friend’s husband, «Brian“‘ when the bartender had the audacity to suggest to him that if we were going to dine at the bar, we should «go ahead and order your entrees with your appetizers, because all women eat slow»; and when the bartender saw me, he told Brian «oh, she’s Asian — Asian girls eat the slowest!» Lovely. This left the generous and kindly Brian speechlessly mad (I’ve never seen this guy mad before) to where he even complained to the manager.
Service at the table started off well: the server arrived promptly to take our drink and food orders; and then she promptly disappeared for the majority of the evening. It took a confoundingly long time for us to receive our appetizers (clams and ricotta bruschetta). A couple that were seated AFTER us had eaten their appetizers and were on to their entrees (yes, I get food envy) by the time we finally flagged down an expediter and asked him to check on the status of our appetizers.
Again, there were no serious complaints about the food preparation, it was reasonably tasty and priced. We enjoyed our clams and red sauce; however, we also ordered the ricotta and honey, which the bartender has assured us would never be served cold but at a pleasing warmed texture. It was served refrigerator-​cold. When we asked our server if this was correct, she replied – while walking away – «ya know, I don’t really know.» My chicken Marsala was delicious (note to chef: the creamy risotto was severely undersalted), and the others liked the tuna and the potato-​crusted mahi mahi.
I noted as another sign of laughably poor training that the expediters served the men first, and were confused about placement and asked us «who got what?»
My friend, «Amy», the wine expert of the group, got her glass of red in a freshly-​washed, piping hot glass (inexcusable for any nicer restaurant, especially one that lauds itself as an atypical wine shop whose food, wine and knowledgeable service will ‘transcend’ you to another place). When she got a replacement glass, the server actually charged her $ 15 for ANOTHER glass of wine, even though Amy had refused to take more than 1 sip out of the hot glass (a manager later removed this charge).
The service came to an end when the manager cleared the settings and the server brought our checks — and imprudently asked «do you guys need change back?» We would liked to have stayed and ordered a bottle of wine. But after being made to feel the WG at The Banks disdains repeat business and doesn’t welcome new customers, we meandered instead to a favorite lager house and got to enjoy the rest of our evening. We will all most definitely NOT ever be returning to this WG — terrible experience, with too many other great restaurants in the area to take our money to instead. For my fiancée and I, it was one and done; for our friends, the shoddy second experience (and this time they had a coupon for a free appetizer because of their first bad experience) has them swearing off WG, possibly even at both locations.

I had a great experience here! Good service, yummy food, honestly, I would recommend this place to anyone!

I would put this place about right in the middle. It wasn’t spectacular but it wasn’t awful. The hummus appetizer was not that flavorful but the main course was pretty good. The wine flights are reasonably priced with good pours. I wouldn’t go out of my way to come again, however, I would not turn down an offer.

Everything here is OK. Not bad, not great, just OK. Decent wine, a few fall back beers, and food that is good, just nothing that you’re going to be clamoring for later. Their flatbreads are a great budget option, the burger is tasty, but for 13 bucks, I want phenomenal. A great fall back spot if the yardhouse and moerlein are super busy. Which is how we ended up here.

We came in after the Reds/​Cubs game yesterday. We were in town from Chicago and had made the reservation in advance. We were seated promptly and our server took a drink order. We ordered wine and it came promptly. The three small plates we ordered were good. The service here is painful. And the noise level is deafening. They need to install some kind on sound dampeners or something on the high ceilings because I couldn’t wait to escape and we had to wait for everything. They appeared to be understaffed by quite a lot. I wouldn’t return on our next visit to Cincinnati.

Overall, pretty disappointing. My wife and I were there as part of a party. At first, the service was good. We were quickly approached by the wait staff and offered a drink. The party room was a great size for our event.
Unfortunately, dinner was disappointing. My wife had a rather large hair in her salad. I had ordered salmon, and the fish was quite overcooked. Somehow, the potatoes underneath were cold.
After the party ended, we moved over to the bar area. The only bartender was very slow, and unfriendly. Members of the wait staff were asking us to move so they could sit and eat their dinner.
All in all, the food and service were mediocre.

Just went for the 1^st time for lunch and can’t wait to try it for dinner — loved the flight and the service was fantastic. I can’t wait to go back for dinner — I just wish it was open later — it would be a great place to go after a play or the symphony for a glass of wine and a light
bite

I had dinner there, so cannot rate the happy hour. The food I had was good and the wine was very good. The service could have been better, but my service was not as bad as some of the other reviews I read, which I would have been shocked if I had received that service (e.g., like not suggesting wine pairing with the food). I ordered a wine flight which was really nice. A $ 10.00 corkage fee if you bought a bottle there was a little outrageous especially since you bought the wine there. Most places that are BYOB charge a max of $ 5.00. The main thing I was impressed was number of gluten free dishes there were. It seemed like about half the menu was and the flatbreads and pasta dishes you could order a gluten free version of. I was with someone who is totally gluten free and it was so nice to see her have such a variety of choices at a menu. I had the Champagne Butter Poached Lobster which someone recommended, it was very good.
When I went it had not been open long, so I will give it a little more time and go back and reevaluate it. But I would still highly recommend it to anyone gluten free or to anyone that has a gluten free friend who they would like to have a nice dinner with.

Bummed. That’s really all I felt after leaving this place.
The new location is right on the banks and it is a beast! The place is huge. It’s nice, but looks very corporate-​y. If that makes sense. A friend and I sat at the bar for a little happy hour festivities. They have a few $ 5 selections which didn’t look to enticing so I opted for the meat and cheese. They do not have any already prepared meat and cheeses. It is your choice of the «cheese of the day» and you pick a meat off the list. When I asked what the cheese of the day was they had to find at least 3 different people to get the question answered. And then when I asked what the difference was between the two salami’s we had to get another person and then the answer was, «I don’t really know. I think it’s just like deli salami.» Shocking answer.
Although I was completely turned off by the service I was still hungry. I ordered the fontina cheese and the prosciutto. Both came out on huge chunky boards yet had only 5 crackers on the cheese one and 4 little pieces of bread on the other. Look at the pictures. The serving sizes were very odd. With so many other places in the city serving AMAZING cheese plates this was a serious disappointment.
The wine I had was delicious. They have a decent selection of wines for purchase and you can also buy a bottle and then just pay the corkage fee which is great when you are with a group and want to try out some different stuff.
I appreciate good food, but what keeps me coming back is service. And this place just lacked in both. Cincinnati restaurants are popping up like crazy. Word of advice, take a few extra days to train your staff, I promise it will make a huge difference.

Finally! this place is actually open after what seemed like forever… The interior is warm and inviting and the bar area has plenty of seats for those not wanting/​needing a table. And just like the Rookwood location, there are some curtained off rooms that are nice for medium sized groups to hang out and be somewhat loud in a private setting. There is also a larger area (with TV) that would be nice for a much larger group of 30+ people.
I recommend their $ 5 Bar Bites menu for a nice happy hour fix. The Diablo Shrimp Sliders were ok, I think they need some kind of dipping sauce, maybe even some sriracha to spice it up. I also had the Ricotta and Honey Jar which is basically some toasted bread and a large serving of ricotta with honey drizzle and a small piece of actual honeycomb. I found the honeycomb to be a very unique and delicious touch to the appetizer. I did not drink any of the wine flights but they do look nice and reasonably priced considering it is downtown. The bottle selection is great and even the sparkling wine selection has some under $ 20. Keep in mind there is a $ 10 corkage fee. The service was fast and friendly and the bathrooms were clean. I have no idea how crowded and long the wait will be on a weekend, and will have to try this place out in a few weeks and update my review. Cheers!
P. S. Not a wino? There are some specialty cocktails available at least during their happy hour (3:30−6:30).
P. S.S. 3:30 — 6:30 is a weird happy hour time if ya ask me… maybe bump it back and hour or at least take it to 7PM.