Drinking Wyoming: Sidekicks Book-Bar Could Be State’s Only Book-Wine Pub

Books and wine come together to make a great thing at Sidekicks Book-Bar in Rock Springs, Wyoming, quite possibly the state’s only book-wine bar.

The blended business offers private spaces to kick back and get away from it all, as well as comfortable group seating arrangements suitable for a guys or gals night out.

The front of the store is adorned with a magnificent tree sculpture and waterfall, which, with the sun’s help, creates a stained-glass effect that feels ethereal and otherworldly.

Books line the wall everywhere on tall shelves with ladders. There are best sellers and staples, kid books and adult books, mysteries, romances, histories — something to appeal to most tastes.

Maybe a book isn’t what you came for. That’s totally cool

Grab a nice glass of wine and a charcuterie tray if you prefer. Try some coffee and dessert. There are also craft beers and whiskey. There are even non-alcoholic spirits from France.

Charcuterie trays come in three sizes to fit just about any appetite.

“You don’t have to be a drinker or a reader,” Sidekicks Book-Bar owner Lisa Ryberg told Cowboy state Daily. “Some people just come in for the WiFi and to have downtime. You can be 100 or have a 1-year-old in your arms. We kind of fit all niches here.”

Reading Was Her Inspiration

Ryberg got the idea for her book-wine bar while she was reading a book, and she’s still not quite sure exactly where the idea came from.

She was fashioning a store from scratch in an era where she realized brick and mortars have to do more than just sell great products.

“What COVID did in my observation is people learned how to effectively use their phones or their iPads to use Amazon to (buy) books,” Robert said.

So her store had to do more than just sell great products. It had to have a great experience, one that could become more than just the sum of its parts.

She still needed a good selection of books, but her store is small, too. With more than a million books published every year, having all the books couldn’t be the main focus.

“I can always order any book someone wants if I don’t have it,” she said. “Otherwise, that book might sit around for three years. But having a nice variety is important.”

Variety, ultimately, kind of defines all of the choices she’s made for the store, which has become a kind of choose-your-own adventure.

“We’re not a full bar, so we’re not going to have 50 things,” she said. “We have beer and Crown Royal so the men feel they are in a comfort zone as well, but we don’t do the mixed drinks because that’s more of a bar feel.”

Plus, traffic at a small store like this one, which is offering food, wine, and books can become quite brutal for one or two servers.

“If someone is making a charcuterie tray, trying to look up a book, getting someone a drink, then making a cocktail, too, that just felt like it’s too much,” she said. “So, I like things that are convenient for us to just open and serve, without that mixing element.”

The Creative Approach To A Liquor License

For Ryberg’s idea to work, she first had to thread a tiny little needle.

Liquor licenses, she learned, are extremely expensive, and they’re not really set up for this type of combination where liquor isn’t meant to be the star of the show.

“I found a provision in the liquor laws, so we opened under a satellite liquor license for Jackson Hole wines,” she said.

That means she could only serve their wines.

“We couldn’t offer beer or anything else,” she said.

Eventually, she went after a social club liquor license, a process that took her two years to get through.

“That allows us to have just what we need,” she said. “We’re not trying to be a bar-bar type of place, where someone comes to get smashed at 2 a.m.”

That’s something she said her customers seem to understand and respect.

“Alcohol is not all that we are, and people recognize that. They come here for a glass or two of wine,” she said. “I’m not a party spot, and people are welcome to come have a drink or not.”

Jackson Hole wines are still available at the wine bar.

“It is simply the best,” Ryberg said. “The quality is amazing. But I do want to have a range. The 21-year-old might prefer something that’s a little bit sweeter.”

So there are some new, fun wines now, too, like Red-Ass Rhubarb and the Purple Cowboy.

What Is Charcuterie Anyway

Charcuterie was a very new thing in Rock Springs when Ryberg added that and the wine to her bookshop. So new, that sometimes she was teaching people to pronounce it, as much as exposing them to something entirely new.

The term is French, and refers to prepared meats like patés, hams, sausages, and cured meats. It’s often paired with things like pickles, jams, fruits, cheeses, and other delicious finger foods.

The spread can look fancy or rustic, which makes it appealing for all sorts of pocketbooks. Charcuterie boards are relatively easy to assemble, and come with lots of choices, so they can appeal to a diverse group. That makes them perfect for gatherings of all sizes.

“Now charcuterie is quite common,” Ryberg said. “So what I like to do is the unique cheeses and I get many of them from Heber Valley.”

That’s a producer that’s just over the border in Utah, but is still a recognizable name locally.

“I do get other cheeses from other distributors,” she said. “I can’t do backflips every day, but I want more than the traditional cheddar. Our kitchen’s a closet so we’re just doing meats and cheese and things that are easy to pick up with your fingers.”

In the beginning, she paired the cheeses with cured meats fashioned into cute little roses. But what she found was guests didn’t want to disturb the pretty artwork.

“So I have evolved,” Ryberg said. “I want people to be comfortable and not worried about destroying the rose to get to eat it.”

Party Venue

Tea parties and other gatherings are common at Sidekicks, and they’ve even had a wedding there at the same time as a book signing.

“We’ve had fairy tale princesses in here, and we’ve had fly-tying classes,” she said. “Tonight there will be a doctor in here to speak, so we are all over the map. If someone wants to have an event here, we make it happen.”

She’s also seen a number of professionals use the space to have meetings with clients, like photographers who want to discuss a wedding shoot, as well as families who want to use the space for a photography shoot.

Not all of her customers are readers.

“I think people like the idea of literature, even if they’re not an avid reader,” Ryberg said. “And this is a great place to come and just browse. We’re not Barnes and Noble. We can’t have a million books a year in one store. But we do our best to select the books the community will be interested in.”

That includes a selection of local authors, who, in addition to leaving some of their signed copies for sale in the store, often also come for book signings and other events.

“I love being engaged with the public,” she said. “I am thinking about selling my store, because it’s hard sometimes to juggle staffing and my own life. But I do love it and I get obsessed with it. As soon as I walk in, I’m like, I’m never leaving here.”

What she’s valued the most are the rich variety of people she gets to meet.

“We had a guy come into the shop, and he looked quite rough,” she said. “We are oilfield people here, so I wasn’t fazed.”

The gentleman turned out to be from Germany, and he’d been hiking in the desert the last 45 days or so.

“We lost electricity in the storm, which is almost unheard of here, and he was going to leave and camp out in his tent in that,” Ryberg said. “I said, ‘Please just let us put you up for the night.’”

That created a friendship between the man and Ryberg and her husband, who is Clark Stith, a Wyoming legislator.

“We were going to Germany the next week, so he put us up in his family home,” Ryberg said. “That connection would have never happened without the shop. So I just love that part of it.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.