“A typical night out for sisters Leslie and LeAnn Jones includes great wine, great food and great friends at some of their favorite restaurants in Los Angeles. Leslie, a luxury wedding planner, and LeAnn, an attorney, were tired of going outside of their neighborhood to enjoy delicious wine and food. With Leslie’s background in hospitality and LeAnn’s knowledge and love of wine, the sisters decided to open 1010 Wine and Events in 2021.”
“1010 Wine is an upscale wine bar (with elevated cuisine) located in the heart of Inglewood, CA, the city that raised Leslie and LeAnn and where they still currently reside. 1010 Wine is the first and only wine bar in the City of Champions. The new dinner menu under the direction of Chef Mo Marvel features highlights such as Black Eyed Pea Fritters, Salmon Crudo, Piri Piri Chicken and Prime Beef Bavette.”
“Leslie and Le Jones have found incredible success by perfectly blending an incredible selection of wines with an elevated and delicious dining menu. The 1010 Wine beverage menu currently features more than 90% Black-owned wines (all hand-selected) not often found in local grocery stores, making 1010 Wine representing the largest selection of Black and Brown owned wineries in California.”
“Their mission is to fill a void in the industry and neighborhood and create a space for people to gather, regardless of their knowledge of wine, to eat, drink, and enjoy Black-owned wines. In addition to delicious wine and food, 1010 Wine also has great music and live performances, and an atmosphere that feels both welcoming and sophisticated at the same time.” All are welcome.
Leslie Jones joins us to uncork all that is 1010 Wine & Events.
This is Ann Marie Panerinkin, Culture OC's food columnist. You can follow me online at cultureoc.org. When I want the best in food and dining news outside of Orange County, of course, I tune into the SoCal Restaurant Show on AM830KLAA. - And welcome back. It is the SoCal Restaurant Show, and happily we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 AM until 12 noon right here on AM830KLAA, the home of the Angels Baseball 2024. It can also catch us on the AM830KLAA app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show, happy to be here. And we're enthusiastically presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety Produce and West Coast Prime Meats, particularly with the sports venues that are coming online in Inglewood. SoFi being one of them, the Intuit Dome for Clipper's basketball, which opens next week with Bruno Mars. And let's not forget what we used to know as the Fabulous Forum. There is now a need in Inglewood for more destination restaurants and more entertainment venues to support both locals and the visitors. And I've been intrigued, I've heard for actually several years, about 10, 10 wine in events in Inglewood and been hearing good things, but just like everything in life did not have a chance to get there. Fortunately, I have resolved that dilemma or resolved that dilemma in the last couple of weeks and had a chance to experience 10, 10 wine in events. And it definitely is a venue that our listeners should know about because it's unusual for that area and they're really working hard to develop regulars and also bring in sports fans. So with that as background, it is a pleasure to welcome the co-owner of 10, 10 wine in events in Inglewood, Leslie Jones to the SoCal Restaurant Show for the first time. Leslie, good morning and welcome and great to have you here. - Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. - Well, Leslie again, I apologize. It took me so many years to get there, but Southern California is a big place and sometimes you just keep adding to the list, but as I say, I kept hearing such good things about 10, 10 wine in events. I just had to see what it was all about. So this is a sister project. You're involved in this with your sister, Leanne. How did this all come about? - Yeah, and we always help you. So literally no pressure, glad that you were able. Me and my sister are born and raised in California and love wine. So we were literally independently looking for two different spaces. My sister has more of a passion for wine than I do and looking for a space to host events because I'm a full-time wedding planner. And so they found the space in England decided to do something together. - Now, had this space previously been a restaurant? - It was actually an automotive garage, so we completely changed the space completely and made it into a wine bar. (laughing) - Oh, Leslie, I have great respect for you because building a kitchen where there was not a kitchen previously, particularly in a location that was not food-related at all, that must have been quite an undertaking. - It was a work, but we were definitely committed to being in our city. So we found spaces that were just right outside of city lines, but we have such a huge connection in the Englewood, this is where we were born, our race. This is where our parents got married. We knew that we wanted to be in the city and that the space that we asked on would be perfect for what we had in vision. And so as much work as it took, we knew that this is where we wanted to be and where we needed to be. - Well, you're one storefront off a very busy intersection and why don't we tell people right now, Leslie, exactly where in Englewood you are? - Yes, we're located at 1010 North, La Brea, Englewood 90302. And so we are at the intersection of La Brea in Centinella and we're right behind the Pizza Hut. - Yeah, not hard to find. And we should also mention to our listeners, Leslie, everybody is always nervous about parking. You do have valet parking and for the more ambitious, there is street parking available if you're willing to be a little patient, but the valet is right there. So hey, no excuses, right? - Literally, our valet parking has been with us for three years since when we opened, they're very friendly and they definitely recognize people that have been there more than a couple of times. And then yes, like you said, we definitely have street parking as well, but we wanted to make it as convenient as possible to visit our space, which is why we did the valet parking. - Here, here to that. Now, Leslie, in the world of wine, there's a group of winery owners and winemakers that have kind of been under the radar for a very long period of time. Something you do very unusually at 10, 10 wine in events is showcase this group that gets very little exposure but deserves it. Tell us a little bit about in terms of what 90% of your wine list represents. - Yeah, so we have the largest selection of black online in the state of California. So 90% of the lines on our menu are from black online companies. And that was just really important to us. My sister Lee, we grew up in a household where our parents really input-sized the importance of supporting black owned businesses, small businesses, women owned businesses, LGBTQ+ owned businesses. And that's something that has really stuck with us throughout our adult life. So anytime we're interested in anything, we're always looking to see what are women doing in this space, what are black people doing in this space, what are other people of color doing in this space? And so that's really how we came about having the wine that we have today. - So at any given time, Leslie, about how many wines by the glass would you have available? - We have between 25 to 30 wines by the glass and then total wines, we have about six wines. - And just so our listeners understand, it's great that these are black owned businesses or black owned winemakers. But you and Leanne taste every one of these and you may love someone's story, but unless the wine measures up, it's not gonna be on the menu at 10, 10 wine in events. - Absolutely, like we are very passionate about what our mission is. Less than 1% of wine companies in the country are all in five black people. And so that is definitely important to us. But we also want our guests to have an amazing experience. So for us, we really wanna taste the wine. We wanna use the wine. We wanna make sure that they pair with the items that are on our menu before we put them on our menu. - Very well spoken. Now, you just brought up something that we don't wanna ignore. You're just not a wine bar. You have a very interesting food menu that goes along with that. Your Chef Mo has gotten very creative. Give us kind of an overview of how you would characterize your menu. And then of course, we need to showcase some of the dishes. - Yeah, so we, you know, put in almost three years ago, August 22nd, will be a third year anniversary. - Congratulations. - Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And when we opened, it was like, okay, we know we need to have food on our menu. We know we really wanna highlight the wine, but we weren't very intentional about making sure that the food that we offered also paired with the wines that we offered. And so about six or seven months ago, we decided, you know, we wanna do an overhaul of our menu and make sure that the food that we are presenting to get also really pairs really well with the wines that we offer. And so that's why we brought on Chef Mo to kind of overhaul our menu and make sure that those flavor profiles are definitely matching up. So right now we have a menu that has African-Latin, fusion and you have fusion and really pairs well with a lot of the wines that we carry. - Tell us about the Black Eyed Pea Fritters 'cause that jumped out at me right away and, you know, a great item, a lot of great flavors. - Thank you. Yeah, the Black Eyed Pea Fritters are our most popular appetizers and, you know, if you are into cell foods, you really know about Black Eyed Pea. And so we just wanted to put our own spit on it. So they're literally like battered Black Eyed Peas. They have so much flavor and they go really great with a lot of the wines on our menu because they have those earthy notes. It really is really great to pair with a lot of the wines that we have. - And a lot of your dishes are visual. We're not gonna have the time to get into all of them, but there's a whole fried fish that changes. There's a bit of that steak. The Perry Perry half chicken is absolutely delicious. And before we run out of time here, Leslie, talk about the entertainment aspect of 10, 10 wine and events 'cause you got a lot going on. You got the food, you got the wine, but there's also music. - We do have a lot going on and really the purpose was the reason why my sister and I built this space is because we were tired of going outside of our city, the place where we were born and raised to enjoy good food and enjoy good wine. And so we know what our friends love to do. We love to drink, we love to eat, we love to enjoy good music and good entertainment. So we really tried to build the space around that. So we're open on Wednesday through Sunday. Wednesday through Saturday, we're open from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. So on Wednesdays, we do live music, it's a jazz artist. On Thursdays, we do all day, happy hour. On Fridays, it's a DJ, it's loud, it's crazy, it's a good time, we'll get up and dance. On Saturdays, we do a complimentary wine tasting and then on Sundays, we're open from 11 to 4 and we do a Sunday brunch. - Again, something for everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, it is 10, 10 wine and events in Inglewood. If you're going over to SoFi for something, this is a great first stop or if you're just in the neighborhood worthy of your consideration. Leslie's and we need to say goodbye. The one thing we haven't mentioned is what is the website for 10, 10 wine and events? - Yeah, so you can find us at Tintinwine.com. You can also find us on Instagram @Tintinwine and events or spelled out or on TikTok @Tintinwine. We're always updating what we have going on, what special events we love to do curated events. So definitely check out that on all of those platforms. - Ladies and gentlemen, Leslie Jones representing half the ownership of 10, 10 wine and events on La Brea in Inglewood. Definitely worthy of your consideration. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. When we come back, yes, we're talking about hatch peppers and also your chance in our little Instagram contest to win this wonderful hatch pepper gift tray. That's a $75 gift, pretty gosh darn good. You're listening to the SoCal restaurant show. We're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Produce. We'll be back before you know it.
