The long, live-edge wood table in the middle of Cellar 59 is what owner Tami Kedziorek calls the “community table.” To her, it’s not just furniture. It’s an echo of Sunday dinners at her grandmother’s house in St. Clair Shores, where the family squeezed in shoulder to shoulder, sharing food, cleaning up, talking into the night. Those weekly gatherings weren’t fancy, but they were constant. And they shaped the kind of place she wanted to create.
“When I opened this, I wanted it to feel like an extension of me,” Tami says. “Without those relationships, it’s just another bar.”
She and her sister launched Cellar 59 in August 2013; at the time, it was Macomb County’s first true wine bar. There were wineries, yes, but nowhere to sit down with a curated glass and a small plate. From the start, Tami wanted the experience to be both elevated and approachable: she serves over eighty wines by the glass (a rarity in an industry where ten is typical) and a pared-down menu, simple enough that if the cook’s out, even the servers can handle it.
“I don’t want pretentious,” she says. “I want anyone to feel like they don’t have to know anything about wine before they walk in the door.”
Over time, Tami’s vision for Cellar 59 grew beyond what’s poured. Each offering is its own doorway into community, reflecting Tami's curiosity as well as her guests’ appetites for connection.
Wine 101 is just what it sounds like: a classroom disguised as a wine bar. Ten or twelve people gather at the bar with notebooks, tasting wines from Bordeaux one month and Italy the next, or comparing cabs from around the globe. Tami shows them how to smell, swirl, and of course, taste: “Do you really know how to actually taste wine?” she asks. “It blows people’s minds when they try it my way. It’s about layers, complexity, and noticing what you like—not what anyone tells you to like.”
Passport Events let forty to fifty guests travel from station to station, tasting wines from a featured region and collecting stamps in a playful “passport” along the way. The next one? Mexican wines, in October. “Who even knew Mexico made wine?” Tami says with a grin. “They’re delicious.”
The Book Club is Cellar 59’s newest addition. October’s selection, Killer Chardonnay, is a cozy mystery set in wine country, where a tasting room owner’s grand opening turns deadly—fitting for a club that’s really an excuse to linger over a glass and a cheese plate. Tami picks books that are available on audiobooks too, so non-readers can get in on the fun. She admits she’s an Audible listener herself. “I tell people, ‘I don’t read either…I’ll be asleep in five minutes.’
The Travel Club came from another refrain she kept hearing: I want to go where you go. Next July, she’ll celebrate her 60th birthday with a river cruise through Bordeaux. Trips range from Napa to New York’s Finger Lakes, from Virginia wine country to Dublin for whiskey and beer lovers. “It’s about sharing experiences,” she says, “whether that’s France or a cider tasting at Blake’s [an orchard and cider mill in nearby Armada].”
Wine Machines are Cellar 59’s self-serve secret weapon: sleek dispensers that let guests pour their own tastes, in 1.5, 3, and 6 oz. glasses—choosing from an astonishing array of more than 40 curated bottles. Armed with a wine card, you build your own flight—no sommelier required. “Some people are intimidated by wine,” Tami adds. “But I always say: if you like it, it’s a good wine. That’s the only rule. We’ve got a wine called Educated Guess, and that’s basically how we pick wines,” Tami jokes. “It’s perfect for a bachelorette party or a girls’ night. You just go with what calls to you.”
Wine Lockers “give customers a home” at Cellar 59, Tami explains. Each locker—all rented “since the day we started offering them”—holds up to a dozen bottles each, and comes with exclusive tastings of higher-end wines not on the regular menu. Locker holders sometimes surprise each other with birthday treats or small gifts left inside. “It’s those little things,” Tami says, “that show how much people here care about each other.”
Perhaps Tami’s most extraordinary innovation came post-pandemic. In-person gatherings had given way to digital connection, but Tami refused to lose that personal touch. So she and her tech-savvy husband brought the vineyard to the people. “We took everyone through a Napa vineyard live on Zoom,” Tami recalls. “The winemaker was answering questions with their feet in the dirt—it blew my mind.”
Cellar 59 runs like a family, so much so that Tami knows she can leave for three weeks in Greece without worrying about the place: her people have her back. “They had to earn that trust,” she says simply. “And they have. I’m picky about who I hire,” she says. “Because you can’t train genuine warmth. You either love people or you don’t.”
Ask Tami for her favorite Cellar 59 story, and she’ll tell you about couples who met as strangers and became friends. Neighbors who didn’t know they lived blocks apart until they sat next to each other here. Or the day-drinking event with a renowned winemaker that drew fifty people for four hours in the middle of a weekday. “Everybody calls us Cheers, but we’re bigger than that,” she says. “Every day, people connect over something. It’s that kind of place. You can walk in by yourself and be sitting with three people within ten minutes.”
Cellar 59 (cellar59.wine) is at the Partridge Creek Mall in Clinton Township.
Swirl, Sip, and Save the Date
Wine 101 │ First Wednesday of Each Month
Wine Book Club │ Last Tuesday of Each Month
Passport Event │ October 23rd – Taste of Mexico
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