Olaf Growald/Fort Worth Magazine and Fort Worth Inc.
Megan McClinton, in front of the 219 S. Main St. location of her soon-to-open Tricks of the Trade bottle shop in Fort Worth's South Main Village.
Fort Worth’s budding South Main Village is adding a bottle shop to its lineup of tenants.
Megan McClinton, a popular Fort Worth bartender with statewide repute, plans to open Tricks of the Trade Spirits & Supplies in the former Frank Kent headquarters offices at 219 S. Main St., with Kent owners Corrie Watson and Will Churchill as her landlords.
Opening will likely be late summer or early in the fall, McClinton, who is opening the 2,500-square-foot space with a partner in the food wholesale and distribution business, said in an interview. In addition to applying to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission for a permit to operate the bottle shop, McClinton also is applying for one to run a distributorship.
Olaf Growald/Fort Worth Magazine and Fort Worth Inc.
Megan McClinton, in front of the 219 S. Main St. location of her soon-to-open Tricks of the Trade Spirits & Supplies bottle shop in Fort Worth's South Main Village.
McClinton, whose last day as tasting room general manager at Fort Worth’s Blackland Distillery is Friday, opened the Thompson’s Bookstore cocktail lounge and speakeasy downtown in 2015 as beverage director. She tended bar at Proper and The Usual on Fort Worth’s Near Southside before she accepted the Blackland post amid COVID-19 last year. McClinton, whose “Summertime Smash” whiskey and berry cocktail was featured last year in a Texas Monthly series of recipes and videos on DIY cocktails by the “state’s best bartenders,” has harbored a longtime fantasy of owning a bar.
McClinton, who grew up in Arlington and graduated Martin High School, holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Photography from the University of North Texas and a Master of Arts in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster in London.
On the Fort Worth bar scene for 10 years, she’s a founding member of the United States Bartenders’ Guild Fort Worth Chapter, and she headed the Ultimate Cocktail Experience charity event in DFW from 2017 to 2019.
“I wanted to do a bar,” McClinton says. “I have a 3-year-old. The hours of retail are a lot more conducive to having a 3-year-old.”
The pandemic helped her move toward a bottle shop and away from the idea of opening a bar, she said. “Liquor stores were allowed to stay open. That really pushed me to focus on the idea” of a bottle shop.
That required a change of model. “I’ve built so many budgets for the bar I was going to open,” she said. “I had to change up the operating model.”
She and her partner, who McClinton said wants to remain in the background, are financing Tricks of the Trade’s opening themselves, without outside capital. Michael Karol, an ULTERRE commercial real estate adviser, helped find the location and negotiate the lease.
McClinton and her partner are resisting the label “liquor store” in describing the business. They envision a customer experience, with a curated selection of spirits, tastings, and advice on finding the right bottles and mixing the perfect cocktail. McClinton wants to interact with neighboring bars, looking to carry, for example, a bottle that’s being featured at the new Nickel City bar across South Main from her store.
“It’s more experiential for the neighborhood, rather than just buy a bottle and go home,” said McClinton, who’s looked at Bar & Garden Dallas, the multi-location Austin Shaker in Austin, and others in California and Canada in coming up with her model.
She’ll probably carry “some wine and some beer,” but wants to stay out of the way of the new Southside Cellar, which opened on South Main just as COVID hit, and even Put a Cork in It, a Park Hill denizen near TCU.
McClinton’s also interested in working with smaller producers, including Texas and emerging Fort Worth brands.
“Maybe work with some of these smaller vendors to get these specialty products in more quickly,” she said. “I think everybody has their Texas whiskey sections. But that’s kind of where it ends.”
McClinton’s looking forward to starting the business in the South Main Village, rapidly growing with new apartments and entertainment and retail. Besides Southside Cellar, she's also up the street from the new Bodega South Main urban grocer and deli. “When it all grows together, it’s going to be pretty amazing.”