Parker's Table adds 80-seat private event space

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The new space (gray mansard roof) is located just to the east of Parker's Table.

Mid-construction at the new event space

When Jonathan Parker opens his 80-seat tasting room in December, he will knock one more thing of his wine bucket list. “The new space is the culmination of 24 years of working towards this end,” he says.

When the long-shuttered building next door to his eponymously named Parker’s Table wine and gourmet food shop came on the market last spring, Parker jumped to buy it. Parker will use the new space to hold specialty tastings and dinners with wine makers, owners and importers. In addition, the room will be available to the public for private parties, rehearsal dinners, birthdays, receptions, and more.

Last year, Parker installed a kitchen in his shop that allows him to bake bread and pastries, roast nuts in house, and serve the Salume Beddu lunch menu each day. The new kitchen fits in seamlessly with his expansion plans.

Fio and Lisa Antognini with Jonathan Parker

He’ll also host dinners with local chefs, something he has always done on a smaller scale.

“Even in my old shop in Clayton we would do these intimate dinners. Zoe [Robinson], Lisa and Fio Antognini, Bryan Carr, and Eddie Neill – they all worked with us there. We’d put four tops in between the aisles in the store and we’d have dinners with wine pairings,” Parker says. “Now, we’ll have in a pass-through door from the Parker’s Table kitchen to the new space to allow us to that again.”

According to Parker, the sleepy corner his wine shop occupies was once part of a flourishing business district in Richmond Heights before the buildings were torn down in an expansion of St. Mary’s hospital.

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The 7100 block of Oakland Ave. in the 1960s and today, showing the St. Mary's garage.

Parker and the soon-to-be renovated facade

“Up through the 1960s, the street was a long street of shops, businesses, restaurants, and bars. Parker’s Table was the Post Office. Our new space had been a grocery store; we think it was the DeMun Market,” he says. “There’s a beautiful facade underneath that siding,” Parker says. An old photograph from the 1960s shows elaborate brickwork and detail. Parker plans to restore the storefront, as he did with Parker’s Table.

“We’re bringing the corner back to life,” he says. The move from Maryland Avenue in Clayton to Oakland and Yale was a good one for Parker. “We’re so convenient now. Customers can pull right up to the front door and park. We only have about 20 spaces in front, but I’ve worked out an arrangement for guests to park in the adjacent St. Mary’s garage for our special events.”

The new space also provides opportunities for people to learn at educational food and wine events. “I look forward to having a space serve educational purposes as well,” he says.

He plans an early to mid-December opening for the new room. “I’ve already got a great rug that will fit in there,” he says.