10-27-2022 Howard Mag - Flipbook - Page 20
E AT S
BY AMANDA YEAGER Howard Magazine
PJ Strain is owner of Revel & Main, a new cocktail bar and restaurant he opened following the closure of Pure Wine Cafe. The Ellicott City restaurant focuses
on tacos and tiki drinks. PHOTOS BY KARL MERTON FERRON
A new chapter for wine bar
Revel & Main focuses on tacos and tiki drinks
PJ Strain knows a thing or two about surviving an
unexpected catastrophe.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Strain and
his restaurant, Pure Wine Cafe, had already weathered
two devastating floods that claimed lives and wiped
out businesses all along Ellicott City’s historic Main
Street.
When the pandemic arrived, “the whole world sort
of felt what we had felt in Ellicott City” after the floods,
Strain said. “The other side of those things is never the
same.”
Sometimes the only response to change is to evolve.
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| Fall 2022 | howardmagazine.com
That’s what Strain decided to do with the 13-year-old
Pure Wine Cafe, a cozy tapas and wine bar that closed
at the end of July to morph into something new.
Pure Wine’s successor, Revel & Main, puts a focus
on tacos and tiki drinks like the Tia Mia, a blend of
white rum, mezcal, orgeat and lime, and the Blue
Hawaiian, an electric-blue cocktail laced with tropical
flavors like pineapple and coconut. There are a halfdozen tacos on the menu for now, including a bulgogi-marinated, braised steak taco topped with pickled
veggies, rice and sriracha aioli that’s reminiscent of a
Pure Wine favorite.