Wine, coffee, community – a catch-all ‘third place’

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

December 23, 2024

ALTOONA – An “emerging” business nearly a decade in the making is bringing the aesthetics of wine country to West Central Wisconsin.

Helix Wine, Craft Bar & Cafe – owned and operated by Lisa Ornstein, her husband, Scott Westphal and their mutual friend Kristin Waldow – is the result of years of ideation that Ornstein said came to a head when she realized she couldn’t continue in her previous profession as a massage therapist.

“My body was physically breaking down,” she said. “Scott kept telling me, ‘You can’t keep doing this… let’s look at something else we can do together as a small business.’”

Ornstein said she and Westphal landed on the idea of opening a wine-related business as they had been exploring their passion for wine since their relationship began in college.

“Our first trip together as a vacation, as a couple, was for my 21st birthday,” she said. “(My) present from him was going to Sonoma (County in California).”

Ornstein said Helix is inspired by her and Westphal’s experiences traveling around wine country in the U.S., South America and Europe, and the name – though originally selected to represent the shape of a corkscrew – “became so much deeper” after opening the business following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The perfect pairing

Ornstein said after more than a decade of wine bar ideation – though “Helix is way more than that now” – Waldow expressed an interest in being part of the venture.

“I think it was Kris expressing an interest in being a part of it that actually lit the fire for us,” she said. “Her creativity and energy and (the fact that she grew) up in a small business family, she’s like, ‘We can do this.’”

Though living in California at the time, Ornstein said Waldow and her husband, Bob, were planning to move to Wisconsin for his work.

Though Bob isn’t an official owner, Ornstein said he does what he can to support the business.

“We call Bob the loudest silent partner on the planet, because he is,” she laughed. “He’s not technically an owner, but he is so emotionally involved in this, because his wife is an owner, and he’s here all the time.”

The timing of the Waldows’ move to the dairy state, Ornstein said, coincided with her and Westphal’s efforts to find a location for Helix in November 2017.

Ornstein said the search was anything but a cakewalk, as she and Westphal visited roughly 15 different potential locations to try and find the one that would bring Helix to life.

“Our vision for Helix was to find a space that felt like you were in a winery,” she said. “That’s just so challenging to find in Wisconsin – not impossible, but in the city, there’s not that kind of green space and that sort of thing.”

At the time, Ornstein said the available real estate gave off industrial concrete vibes, making it difficult for them to envision the naturalistic space they were hoping to create.

She said they began to feel defeated in their search until their realtor “tricked” them into finding the future home of Helix.

“He had us meet at a restaurant in this new development that we knew about because it was right near our house,” she said. “He’s standing on this dirt lot… and he said, ‘What do you think about putting your bar here?’”

Though she and Westphal already knew of the development, Ornstein said they assumed the vacant site was going to be made into a parking lot.

“It turned out that the City of Altoona was looking for one more business to put on this lot along with some parking,” she said.

Ornstein said the lot was exactly what they had envisioned the home of Helix would be, with plenty of grassy space for walking paths and views overlooking the Eau Claire River.

“This is the park setting that we’re looking for that can feel like you’re at a winery,” she said. “We (would have been) happy to find a pre-existing building if it was the right kind of dimension, that sort of thing – but getting to build (Helix) on our own from the ground up, we got to create the space in (the) shape and a size and everything that worked for us.”

It takes a city

After falling in love with the vacant lot, Ornstein said they approached the city with their idea and were met with immediate interest and support.

“That’s totally what the city wanted,” she said. “It was so funny – it was like it was kismet.”

Ornstein said they began the process to purchase the land in January 2018, but because of permitting, project delays and then, the COVID-19 pandemic, Helix didn’t open until December 2022.

“The city council was super supportive, and they were really wonderful, but it just took a long time,” she said. “It’s not like buying from a private entity – if anything was wrong with the offer, we’d have to wait for the next city council meeting for three weeks.”

Though they had a rough idea of what they wanted Helix to be, Ornstein said she, Westphal and Waldow had to develop thorough designs and a business plan that amassed to more than 140 pages in order to purchase the land.

“We had so much background and exploration of the things we wanted to provide (and) offer to the city and the community,” she said. “We knew that what Helix was going to become was something really special that this community had never seen before.”

Ornstein said they often found it challenging to explain their idea because of how many different services and products they envisioned offering at Helix.

“There’s going to be wines by the glass – dozens of them (to) offer – there’s going to be craft cocktails, there’s going to be spirits by the ounce, there’s going to be a full food menu, beer on tap, there’s going to be a bottle shop with wine and spirits, it’s going to be (a) special events and private events (space),” she said. “Talking about all the things that we were gonna do – it was a lot.”

Eventually, their plan was approved and a groundbreaking was scheduled for May 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic put the project on hold.

The deeper meaning

At the onset of the pandemic, Ornstein said she, Westphal and Waldow decided to put Helix on hold.

“We just told everyone, ‘Hey, we’re going to need to pause, because we’re not opening up a ‘bar and restaurant place’ in the middle of a viral pandemic,’” she said. “We basically had to sit on our hands for a while and wait to see what happened.”

Fortunately, Ornstein said the City of Altoona agreed to hold the land even though the project was now indefinitely delayed.

As lockdown regulations began to loosen, Ornstein said the Helix team was presented with yet another hurdle.

“The next thing we had to grapple with (was) all these skyrocketing costs for building materials,” she said. “We literally spent the next two months working on kind of ‘value engineering’ and kind of adjusting materials and all that – just to try to bring the cost down.”

After the project cost settled at a number she, Westphal and Waldow could manage, Ornstein said they broke ground in November 2020.

“The joke is that Kris and her husband were like, ‘We moved (from) California to do this. We’re not giving up,’” she said. “We just had to stay committed – emotionally and psychologically to this project, and just keep pushing.”

Ornstein said construction took roughly 13-and-a-half months because the design was “very well thought out,  (so) it took a very long time.”

“We used (a designer based in San Jose, California) because she had done a remodel for our business partner and her husband in Northern California when they used to live there,” she said. “With her living that close to wine country, we knew that she got the aesthetic.”

Following construction and the grand opening in December of 2022, Ornstein said the name Helix adopted a much deeper meaning.

“Originally, the name Helix was just based upon the fact that it’s the shape of a corkscrew,” she said. “But then we thought about (the) human aspect of it.”

Providing folks with a “third space” to gather, interact and enjoy each other’s company felt like it became increasingly important following the pandemic, Ornstein said.

“We are all human, and we’re all made up of DNA with this double helix – so we’re all connected that way,” she said. “It’s that human aspect of it that was such a beautiful thing.”

Raising the ‘bar’

Ornstein said though Helix was born out of her and Westphal’s passion for wine, the business became so much more as the couple and their business partners brought it to life.

“This is not just a bar, we have a full coffee cafe, we have a full food menu (with) brunch, lunch, dinner, dessert – the whole thing,” she said. “And all ages are welcome.”

Offering a comfortable environment, food for any time of day and beverages both alcoholic and not, Ornstein said patrons also use Helix as a gathering space for personal and professional reasons.

“We have people who work from here,” she said. “They will come with their laptop and literally work for like, six or eight hours – they’ll spend their entire work day here.”

On top of serving as a catch-all community space, Ornstein said Westphal spent years curating the Helix bottle shop and wine selections.

“That’s his baby – he has developed this selection of fine wines and spirits,” she said. “But there’s also this really great quality for the price – people can come in, they can grab a bottle of wine that they’ve never even heard of… and it’s $18, and it’s delicious.”

Ornstein said Helix offers more than 400 types of spirits in its bottle shop and robust back bar – ensuring every patron can find something to enjoy.

The result of a decade-worth of hard work, she said, recently caught the eye of the Eau Claire Chamber of Commerce – which named Helix its 2024 Emerging Business of the Year, an honor Ornstein said reassured the lengthy efforts they went through in establishing it.

“Getting that recognition with that award for Best Emerging Business was really emotional,” she said.

As Helix celebrates two years in business this December, Ornstein said she, Westphal and the Waldows are happy to see their years-long vision finally come to fruition and are excited to see how Helix continues to grow.

Head to thehelixexperience.com for more information.