Vintage bar, distillery planning to open in Arts District

Two businesses are expected to open up their doors in the Arts District next year to offer distillery tours and vintage-inspired cocktails.

Nevada H&C Distilling Co. has big plans to relocate its operations to a 4.1-acre site, including renovating an existing building and constructing another to grow its inventory and offer tours. And antique and collectibles shop Vintage Vegas is planning on adding a bar to its current space on Main Street in the Arts District.

Both businesses say they are planning to start their new operations in 2024.

Nevada H&C Distilling

H&C Distilling’s new location at the northwest corner of Wyoming Avenue and Industrial Road will nearly triple the size of its current operation, co-owner Aaron Chepenik said. Just under 12,000 square feet on the site is being renovated — to look like an old Spanish Mission — or added for storage, according to plans filed with the city of Las Vegas.

The company will give up its existing space on Mesquite Avenue just behind Interstate 515.

“We don’t have the room for barrels, we don’t have the room to put in an automated bottling line,” Chepenik said of the existing space. “There’s hardly any room for me.”

H&C Distilling has been producing spirits since 2016, focusing on vodka, bourbon and rye whiskey.There aren’t plans to add new spirits to H&C Distilling’s offerings, but the new space should allow them to do more barrel aging and limited releases, Chepenik said.

The expanded space will make it easier for the company to produce and store more inventory as it plans to export its products to more locations across the U.S. and to Europe and Australia, he said.

The new space also will host a gift shop and tours of H&C Distilling’s operations. Chepenik said he thinks offering tours will be a great way to boost the brand with Las Vegas already being a tourist destination and the city not having many distillery tours.

Distilling operations at the new site should start by mid-2024, with tours starting in the fall, Chepenik said.

More expansion on the Arts District site is possible based on demand, he said.

“The advantage of just having two guys owning it, we just play by ear, we just want to make sure we can keep up with demand and have things go a little easier,” he said.

Vintage Vegas bar

Vintage Vegas has been updating its store for the past year to add a bar, said Jeff Anthony, who co-owns Vintage Vegas with his wife May.

The bar will be about 1,900 square feet, according to documents from the city of Las Vegas.

“When you come into Vintage Vegas cocktail lounge, you’re going to be stepping back in time and at the same time then you can go next door and buy some dead people’s junk and cool crap,” Anthony said.

The goal for the bar is to provide a relaxed lounge experience that will use the nostalgia of old Las Vegas, he said.

Anthony said customers have been telling him for a long time that they want more Las Vegas nostalgia.

“We see tourists coming into town, and all they do is ask us, ‘Where can we go to get that old Vegas experience? Where can we go to have an old lounge feeling?’” he said. “And there was no nowhere to go.”

The Vintage Vegas bar will use decorations and barware from old casinos to create that vintage feel and will offer cocktails inspired by Las Vegas’ history, Anthony said.

Anthony said he hopes the bar will help boost business on the retail side. The bar also will stay open later than the retail store, he said.

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on X.