Flint, MI — It’s been a year since the doors opened at a local wine, beer, and charcuterie shop and business owner, Emily Doerr says, the community keeps her going.
“It’s been a whirlwind,” said Doerr, owner of Queens’ Provisions, referring to the first year of business. “People choosing to have their events here has been the reason that I want to keep going. I can see the growth because people like the vibe, and that reinforces that we need to keep doing what we’re doing.”
Since opening, Queens’ Provisions, has become a spot for celebrations, from birthday and graduation parties to fundraisers, networking, and open mic poetry events.
To celebrate the business’s one-year anniversary, Queens’ Provisions is hosting a block party titled Bacchanalia for the community on Sunday, Aug. 11 from noon to 4 p.m.
The event will feature food trucks, local retail vendors, and music from DJ Gozza.
In addition, crowns will be given out to children and adults have the opportunity to win drink coupons through games like corn hole and putt-putt.
“I wanted to make sure that from the moment people walked in, it was very welcoming,” said Doerr of the shop located at 421 Garland St. on the corner of Second Avenue in Flint’s Carriage Town Historic District. “What’s interesting is people who come in here for the first time are very frequently like, wow, I remember when this was the Berridge Hotel, and you wouldn’t come near it.”
Its 3-1/2-story building, constructed in 1928, was once a hotel called the Flint Berridge Hotel, which offered affordable weekly rates for newcomers to the city.
“It [the Flint Berridge Hotel] was definitely a beautiful space that also wasn’t opulent,” she said, noting that after the city’s economic decline, it gained a reputation for being a sort of halfway house.
Following this period of decline, the building was vacant for years.
“It’s cool getting the community’s response around what it means to get a new business in what was a previously empty space, and how that helps. I think so often people are like, Oh, new businesses are only downtown. We need to pull them out into the neighborhoods. We need to have a more deliberate kind of activation of other parts of town,” she said.
Doerr provides wine for $12-$24 a bottle. Patrons have the option to hang out, but the shop also functions as a seven-day-a-week retail space. Queens’ Provisions also offers brunch every Saturday and Sunday, supplied by the Local Grocer, in addition to their normal business hours.