1010 Wine + Events The New Hot Spot in Inglewood

We met up with Leslie Jones, owner of Inglewood’s new hot spot 1010 Wine and Events.  You would be lucky to even be able to book a reservation! As soon as you walk in the decor is breathtaking.  Music, smiles and charcuterie boards are front and center. 

INTRODUCE YOURSELF AND TELL US HOW LONG 1010 WINE HAS BEEN OPERATING?

​​My name is Leslie Jones of 1010 wine and events and we're located in Inglewood California we obtained our building in July of 2019in hopes of opening in December and not understanding all that went into opening up a wine bar we had a few delays and then the pandemic happened. So my day job is that i'm a wedding planner so all of the income that I had coming in planning winnings kind of stopped so we had to take a pause with the rest of the world and then we were able to pick up construction at the beginning of 2021. Opening up our doors in a pandemic was not what we were expecting at all so we really had to educate ourselves on what the county policies were what we needed to do with the city and also not just following rules but make sure that we were doing what was best for the people that were coming in because we are a space for the community and we want to make sure that we're not just about okay we wanted to open open open we wanted to give our guests a place safe to come as well so we did our research to make sure that we were providing a space that was not only fun to go to but also safe some of the adversities that we face being a black business owner is the expectation of what we're going to bring to the table so i think sometimes when someone sees first off i'm black i'm young i'm a woman um they don't expect me to know what i'm doing they don't expect me to be able to function in this space especially the wine world which is predominantly you know older white men so it's just the expectation that i don't know what i'm doing so that has been super difficult we've really had to learn how to talk to people so that they know how to best service us yeah so although there's been some adversity there's also been a lot of positives being a female black business owner especially in this space our community has rallied behind us like none other and i know that's because of us being black women and them really wanting to support us the other thing that's great is too is because at our wine bar we carry 90 of black owned wines so we're really able to relate to the black wine makers whose wines that we serve and so it wouldn't be the same if we weren't black and women

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO CREATE A WINE BAR IN INGLEWOOD?

So my sister and i were inspired to create a wine bar in Inglewood because that's how we get together with our friends it's over wine so my sister got into wine when she was in law school she traveled a bunch so she got to try different wines when she would go to other countries and then she would come back home and bring them to me and our friends and we would try wines and that's how we kind of got into line and so we were born and raised in Inglewood most of our friends are here and we wanted to create a space here just to enjoy wine and drink so i tell people all the time like we appreciate people coming here but we really created this for us just so any given day you can come in here and i'm like out here drinking a glass of water because that's why we opened it so the most popular wines at 1010 are definitely the black girl magic, riesling the Earl sStephens prosecco and earl stevens is the rapper e40 and then the opp pinot noir those are definitely our top sellers.

WHERE DO YOU SEE 1010 GOING IN THE NEXT 5-10 YEARS 

Our hope for 1010 is that we are able to open up other locations but not only that just educate the world on what black winemakers have what black wine makers can do so if you go into any other restaurant or hotel you're not going to see a lot of these wines on people's menus and our hope is that that changes our hope is that people come here and get introduced to wines that they haven't tried before and they bring them back to their different companies and start introducing them to their wines i think making wine and having upscale places for Inglewood residents to go is extremely important just because we live here doesn't mean that you know we don't know anything about wine doesn't mean that we're not educated on wine so to have to go to santa monica where they have five one wine bars on one corner or you know the beach cities where you can go bar hopping and go to a bunch of different wine shops for us it was important for that to be here as well so that people can enjoy this experience without leaving their community

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO BUY BLACK 

I think buying black and supporting local businesses is extremely important clearly there's a lot of new developments coming to the city and it's always funny when i tell people i live in inglewood or that i'm from Inglewood they're like that's such an up-and-coming place unlike up and coming like we've been here we've been doing this and so i think it's important to support these these businesses that have been here and that are coming here um so that people know like what Inglewood actually is and it's not a huge stadium it's not you know all of these big developments coming up Inglewood at its core are these small businesses that has been open for years who are owned by families who are owned you know i own this business with my sister who are owned by you know people of color and it's not just these big establishments