Is this Toronto’s most chill wine bar?

There’s a long, complex list of fees associated with importing small-batch wines into Ontario that would take a detailed spreadsheet and an hour-long Ted Talk to explain. The short version: for Ontario bar owners, it’s nearly impossible to serve glasses of interesting wine anywhere close to the old-world dream price of just a few euros—making a dive wine bar hard to pull off without sacrificing quality or, well, a living.

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But Pinot Grouchio’s, a new Brockton Village watering hole that opened in a former nail salon in January, has a bygone charm and prices that come pretty close. Owner Gary Dylan has been working in the restaurant scene for over a decade. He wanted to open a spot where guests could drink good wine casually, without breaking the bank.

“The original idea was to build a no-frills place where anyone who was curious about wine could try a variety of options at cheaper price points,” says Dylan. “During renovations, though, the character of the building started to reveal its beauty. It would have been a shame to turn it into something it wasn’t, so the vibe of the space is less divey now, more cozy.”

Dylan says it felt like building a brand-new 100-year-old bar. The moody space is furnished with vintage church pews, salvaged wood tabletops, exposed brick details and a poured concrete bar—but the audiophile-worthy sound system is an outlier to the vintage aesthetic.

The cellar is small, which means so is the by-the-glass list, but this allows Dylan to change things up on the fly—which he does frequently, as the weather or mood shifts. Everything is priced by the ounce, so guests can order anything from a sample sip to a healthy TGIF kind of pour. As for natural versus conventional, Pinot Grouchio’s isn’t dogmatic about either camp. “As long as the wine is good, interesting or classic and guests are curious about it, we’ll serve it,” says Dylan.

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The snack offerings are small but mighty: dashi-braised peanuts, Montreal-style steamed hot dogs and rotating specials on the weekends (recently, a hearty chickpea curry and a clam-miso soup).

For those who aren’t into wine, there’s a single beer on tap—Burdock Deluxe—and it comes in an A&W-style frosted mug. “It’s actually sneaky good,” says Dylan. And while he stays away from fussy cocktails, he does pour pre-batched “baby ’tinis,” adorable miniature martinis. And whenever summer weather decides to grace us, Dylan has plans for one more drink on the menu: a “not-shitty sangria.”