The Couple Behind Colonia Verde Just Opened a Spanish-Portuguese Wine Bar Around the Corner. The Second-Concept Playbook

NEW YORK — The simplest way to open a second restaurant in New York is sometimes the most overlooked: stay on the same blocks, shrink the format, and serve the people who already know your name. That is the bet behind Ibérico, a Spanish and Portuguese wine and tapas bar that opened Nov. 5 at 258 DeKalb Avenue in Fort Greene.

The bar comes from chef Felipe Donnelly and wine director Tamy Rofe, the husband-and-wife team behind the nearby Latin American restaurant Colonia Verde, according to What Now New York and DiningOut. Coverage in Hoodline, citing SWURL Media, also named Viridiana Escamilla, Colonia Verde’s general manager and a partner there, as an operating partner at Ibérico. Hoodline, citing the local newsletter Clinton & Greene, reported that the bar took over the former Dosa Royale space on DeKalb Avenue, near Vanderbilt Avenue.

It is a different kind of opening from the large, brand-driven debuts elsewhere in the city this month: a neighborhood bar with a short list and small plates, not a destination dining room.

A Tight List, on Purpose

DiningOut reported that the wine list is exclusively Portuguese and Spanish, plus vermouths from around the world, a reflection of the couple’s time living in Portugal and Rofe’s relationships with winemakers there. In a Substack post quoted by Hoodline, Rofe described the list as deliberately small: “The list is small (fifty cuvees total including things by the glass).”

Fifty bottles is not a trophy cellar. It is a working inventory a small team can know well and keep in stock. For a second concept, that constraint is a feature. A sprawling list would demand more capital, storage and staff time than a walk-in wine bar can usually support.

Alatz Ortega, formerly of The Ten Bells, created the cocktail menu and sourced the vermouths, according to DiningOut. What Now New York reported that the drinks program also includes sherry and classic-inspired cocktails. The food, from Donnelly, leans on the bars of Spain and Portugal: pan con tomate, boquerones, tortilla española de Betanzos, and rissóis de leitão, which DiningOut described as a traditional Portuguese half-moon pastry filled with shredded roast suckling pig.

What Now New York reported opening hours of 4 p.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday and 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday. During the opening stretch, DiningOut said, Ibérico is walk-ins only.

Why a Second Concept Next Door Can Work

Opening around the corner from a restaurant you already run is not automatically easier. You can cannibalize your own tables, split your managers too thin, and discover that regulars who love your first place do not want a second personality from the same owners. The Ibérico plan tries to avoid that trap by changing the job of the room.

Colonia Verde is a full restaurant. Ibérico, as What Now New York described it, is designed as a neighborhood bar for wine, cocktails and small plates rather than a formal dining destination. That gives existing guests a place for a glass before or after dinner, and it gives the block a different reason to visit on a weeknight.

There is also a real-estate logic. A former restaurant bay on a known Fort Greene corner is easier to imagine as a wine bar than as a cold opening in a neighborhood where no one has heard of you. The trade-off is that your reputation arrives on night one. If the list or the welcome is off, the same regulars who would have given a stranger three visits may decide in one.

What Now New York reported that Camila Forero oversaw the design and build-out, with lighting by John Sorensen-Jolink of the Brooklyn studio Coil & Drift and a visual identity by Polonsky & Friends. In a 50-cuvee bar, the room is part of the product.

What Other Founders Can Copy

You do not need a Spanish-Portuguese concept to use this playbook. Stay close enough that you can walk between the two rooms. Change the format so the second place is not a smaller copy of the first. Keep the menu and the list short enough that a small team can run them well on a Tuesday. Promote people who already know how you work, rather than building a second management layer from scratch. And decide, before you sign the lease, whether you are building a destination or a neighborhood habit. Ibérico is aiming at the second.

DiningOut listed no website for the bar at the time of its preview, so the early weeks will depend on foot traffic, word of mouth and whatever the Colonia Verde audience carries down the block. That is a risk. It is also consistent with a walk-in wine bar that wants to belong to Fort Greene more than to the internet.

If you have one busy room and an itch to grow, the question is not whether to open a wine bar. It is whether a smaller format already belongs on your own blocks. The hard part is keeping it small once the first Saturday works.

Entrepreneurs Of New York is an independent publication and is not affiliated with Ibérico or Colonia Verde.