Theresa Falls wasn’t even a teenager when she first entered the New Paltz dining scene. Twenty-nine years after working as a hostess at the Plaza Diner, she has a place all her own.
Nestled in the heart of New Paltz’s Water Street Market sits Falls’s wine pub Jar’d. The pub, which opened shop at its current location this past March, features several eclectic wine and beer selections.
“I’ve been bartending and working in New Paltz pretty much my whole life,” Falls said. “I didn’t necessarily want a huge restaurant, but I did want a nice place for people to have beer and wine that’s a little bit different.”
The pub is considerably smaller than other local drinking locations like Bacchus and The Gilded Otter.
The pub features several tables and a bar which features wine by the glass starting at $7 and several different beer choices.
Falls said this, along with the Water Street Market location, helps to make the pub a spot for Hudson Valley locals as well as a destination location.
“I already knew what the demographic was and when a place like this would be busy at different times of the year,” she said. “I feel like this is the epicenter of the town for tourists and locals with everything it has to offer. It’s a little bit of a destination, but that’s what I like about it.”
Although Jar’d’s first priority for its customers is wine and beer, Falls includes homemade tapas selections on the menu. The menu items, which include several bruschetta selections, white bean dip and hummus, are all made by Falls at her own home.
There are several bartenders on staff at Jar’d, but Falls is the only cook the bar has.
“I do a lot of the cooking myself, but there are other things from the area that I buy and can serve ready to go,” Falls said.
Falls strives for quality while holding a realistic view of her market.
“I’m not exclusively local,” Falls said. “I get my meats imported from Spain, but I try and support local businesses as much I can, especially with the produce in the area at this time of the year.”
Seasons are definitely a factor when it comes to the pub’s offerings, Falls said.
While there are a couple of wines she has kept available since she first opened, she said she always keeps two beers on draft. One is the beer of the week, the other an IPA.
Falls focuses on quality drinks, and the customer satisfaction is evident.
“I love to have beer from the Yard Owl Brewery,” she said. “It’s very special because they only distribute to four places in New Paltz and they don’t distribute often. When people find out we have it, I usually can’t even keep it until the end of the day.”
Though Jar’d is in the heart of Water Street Market and somewhat distant from campus, Falls said the range of people who visit the pub regularly span ages and spending limits.
“I can have two people in their 50s on one end of the bar and then two 21- year-olds on the other end,” Falls said. “I didn’t want to have a pretentious menu with $13 or $14 glasses of wine and I wanted to make this place approachable for wine lovers. It makes it reasonable for college students or someone in their 30s or 40s to come here.”