Owner Kirit Patel, left, and General Manager Shelby Hays, right, of Chuck’s Wine & Spirits stand among the racks of wine and other spirits they sell in their Three Springs Road store on Friday, Feb. 5, 2021, as they prepare to open a second location in the new The Point at Peachtree development at 5851 Scottsville Road. (Grace Ramey/photo@bgdailynews.com)

A year that saw business at Chuck’s Wine & Spirits on Three Springs Road grow despite the coronavirus pandemic is now leading to an expansion of that liquor retailer.

Kirit Patel, who has owned Chuck’s since 2016, plans to open a 4,400-square-foot Chuck’s location in the new The Point at Peachtree development at 5851 Scottsville Road.

Chuck’s will join the Q coffee shop and bakery as the only occupants of an 11,250-square-foot building that is nearing completion as the first phase of a planned seven-building commercial development across Scottsville Road from Hospice of Southern Kentucky.

“We’re shooting for opening in mid-April,” said Patel, who also owns the Chuck’s Liquor Outlet on Louisville Road and Red Barn Liquors on U.S. 31-W By-Pass. “A lot of people are opening small liquor stores now. I didn’t want to lose market share. If I didn’t open a store out there, someone else would.”

Patel and Chuck’s store manager Shelby Hays said they couldn’t pass up the opportunity presented to them by the Scottsville Road property’s developer, Jackson White.

“We’re looking to capture that market out there,” said Hays, who has been with Chuck’s for more than 20 years. “Alvaton is a big customer base, and Allen County is still dry.”

Patel describes the Scottsville Road store, which will be less than half the size of the Three Springs Road location, as a “boutique-style” store offering hard-to-find wines, single-barrel bourbons and other products.

“It will be a little more upscale,” he said.

“We’ll have fine wines and Scotch whiskey that you don’t normally see at other stores,” Hays said.

The new store will carry the Chuck’s name, continuing to pay homage to the late Chuck Evans, who owned a number of local liquor stores from the 1970s until his death in 2010.

The Chuck’s stores were bought by Indiana-based United Package Liquors in 2012 and later sold to Big Red Liquors.

Patel bought the Louisville Road and Three Springs Road stores in 2016, adding them to his Red Barn Liquors store.

Both Patel and Hays want to continue the association with Evans, who is remembered for his weekend wine tastings and his charitable work.

“His name is known by everybody,” Patel said. “Name recognition goes a long way.”

Patel would like to see the momentum that Chuck’s built in 2020 continue at all his locations.

“We did shut down and do drive-through only for about 30 days,” he said. “But all the wine and spirits stores did better overall last year. People couldn’t get in bars and restaurants to have a drink, so they bought from the stores.”

Patel said he will soon be looking to hire staff for the new location, which will be open seven days a week just like the Chuck’s on Three Springs Road.

“We’ll be looking to hire 10 to 15 people,” he said.