Today we’d like to introduce you to Kevin Walker.
Hi Kevin, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m Kevin Walker, owner of The Winchester Pub and Bottleshop. Not sure exactly where to start…I’m a soccer player that has played since around 8 years old. Am also a huge fan of the sport, especially the English Premier League. That hasn’t always been the case as we didn’t have coverage when I was young. It’s only been the last 30 years or so that we’ve had proper television coverage here in the US. We got a small trickle here or there before the US got to host the 94 World Cup, which changed everything for me. I’d have to suggest the same for a general US us with regard to the sport. That event kicked off a brand new level of engagement and visibility of the different leagues across the pond. As time went on, my friends and I became more and more vested in all of it and came to become fans of different teams within the varied leagues. The problem, though, was that although we now had coverage, the sports bar establishments at the time had little to no interest in showing the matches. There were numerous occasions when, after pickup, my friends and I would show up at a spot and ask for the game and be flatly denied. There could be no other people in the place and we could have up to 11 of us ready to spend, but we’d get a “sorry, we don’t focus on that”. So, after some time, I decided to build my own home pub. The original Winchester (named after the bar in the movie Shaun of the Dead) went live on Boxing Day 2012 and instantly became the go-to spot for my friends and I to watch the many games we now had access to. Really good times those. During all of this time, I was working in tech at Lenovo. Was there for about 13 years leading up to the 2018 World Cup. I was a bit jaded with my current job and decided early in the year to call it quits and move on to something else, but first, to enjoy the World Cup in peace. My wife and I had been lightly scouting different retail spaces in the area to see if something popped up that looked like an enticing opportunity. One of those spaces was behind the North Ridge Shopping Center. At the time, 3 years earlier, it looked like a no-go, as pretty much everything back there was closed, but when we went back in early 2018, it looked like a possible opportunity, with the gym and a few other businesses open and running. I tucked that away in the noggin, started watching the Cup and began to run some numbers. By the time the World Cup was coming to a close, I felt like we had a working business plan that could get us up and running so I started doing the actual leg work. We found a contractor who quoted us about a month of work so we thought we’d get right to building but had a full year’s holdup in waiting for permits. The enormous cost in not being open while waiting for these, became an issue and it started to look like we wouldn’t be able to open at all as rent was due each month and we had nothing. Eventually though, things started to move, we got the permits, and we started the build. I’m a self-taught woodworker so after the core plumbing and electrical was finished, I built the bar myself and we got ready for kickoff. We had a few soft openings and then launched officially right around Boxing Day 2019, almost 7 years to the day after the opening of the original. Cosmically ironically, that’s right about when Covid hit. We were about about 2.5 months before we had to close back down for the pandemic. So, in classic stranger than fiction fashion, we became exactly what The Winchester in the movie was intended to be – a place to have a pint (outside and spaced appropriately) and let it all blow over. After about 1.5 year, it kinda did. We’ve been in business about 6.5 years now and things are going really well. We’re looking forward to the 2026 World Cup as one of the few soccer-forward places in the area.
So craft beer, though…
Also around 2012, my friends and I, always beer and pub fans, became huge proponents of craft beer. We travelled to events, waited in the whale lines, were prominent on Untappd, etc. As of this article, I’d say I’m one of the more industrious power users on the app due to the constant search for new and wonderful beer. The Winchester is all craft and more NC-focused.
Bullets:
– Soccer fan/player
– World Cup 94 super boost to fanship
– No access to watching the games with friends
– Home pub 2012
– Craft beer enthusiasm builds
– Quit Lenovo for World Cup 2018
– Woodworking
– Research and dev of new public pub
– Year-long holdup for permitting
– 2019 go-live of new pub
– March 2020 Covid and closer
– Various modus operandi during Covid (outside only, masks, limited inside with spacing, etc…)
– Finally open and running 6.5 years
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not so very smooth, as mentioned in the overview.
Our 2 biggest hurdles were permitting and Covid.
Also, during Covid, we couldn’t get any loans or leniency because we hadn’t been in business long enough to qualify for anything – another issue caused by the permitting delay…
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’ve been in tech most of my life in virtually of its forms – from graphic to designer, to programmer, to digital marketing. I’m probably best known for bringing new tech solutions to more difficult problems. But the combination of all of the other things tends to make me a Swiss Army knife where others tend to be more specialized. I’m probably most proud of combining all of these different aspects into the creation of The Winchester, where we incorporate advanced graphics, game-programming, dynamic web content, woodworking, traditional art and more into one packaged solution that works together seamlessly to support our dual core focii of support for soccer and support for craft beer.
How do you think about luck?
Bad luck has probably been more significant than good, but we try to not dwell on the negatives and twist them into the most positive we can. The Covid shutdown gave us some much-needed time to further build out the space aesthetically and the required lower patronage gave us time to go deeper with our core neighborhood clientele.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thewinchesterraleigh.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/TheWinchesterRaleigh/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheWinchesterRaleigh/
- Threads: https://www.threads.net/@thewinchesterraleigh
