Coming Soon: Wise Child Wine Store Is Expanding Into Wine Bar Territory

Anyone who knows Fremantle knows that a trip to Wise Child Wine Store rarely ends with just one bottle of wine.

Over the past eight years, Lucy Byrnes and James Whineray and their tight-knit team have built a loyal following on the back of warm and knowledgeable service, which makes small-batch producers and minimal-intervention wines easy to understand, and even easier to take home in multitudes.

Come July, that experience will move beyond takeaway. Thanks to a newly approved tavern licence, Wise Child will soon make a subtle but significant shift into wine bar territory, inviting customers to pull up a seat, open a bottle and stay a while. 

“We wanted to add a bar component without losing the bottle shop,” says Byrnes. “It’s already very established, so it was about building on that rather than starting again.”

The change won’t come with a hard reset, but rather an expansion of what locals already love. Opening hours will stretch slightly, with Byrnes promising that “if you’re passing by with the gals and you want a chardy at 12 o’clock when the shop opens, you can do that”. 

At first, capacity will sit at around 30 seats, with scope to grow over time. “We’re starting small and seeing how it feels,” says Byrnes. Seating will spill out across Market Street, with additional spots at the window, at the bar and in a new back-of-house dining area that brings guests closer to the action.

“It’s a whole new component out the back with the kitchen and bar,” says Byrnes. “You’ll kind of be sitting in the kitchen in that part of the venue, which is kind of fun.”

Bottles from the shop can be opened on-site for a corkage fee, effectively turning the store’s entire stock into a living wine list. A rotating by-the-glass list will be comprised of what’s pouring best at the time.

“A lot of the wines we stock are small-batch, so things come and go quickly. It keeps it interesting, you don’t get bored of the same thing,” says Byrnes.

Alongside the mostly Australian wines, there’ll be a tight selection of both nostalgic and niche beers like Swan Draught longnecks, Emu Export, Melbourne Bitter and local brews. 

“It’ll be a walk in, sit down, have a Swan or a fancy chardy kind of place. There’ll also be carafes of table wine, cheap and cheerful, just for easy drinking. We really want to offer something that isn’t just $20 glasses of wine.”

The food won’t be “overly elaborate, just things you want to pick at and share,” says Byrnes. That means ploughman’s-style platters loaded with wedges of cheese, house-made pickles, quality bread, whipped butter, tinned anchovies and beer nuts. 

Wise Child Wine Store Fremantle (21a Market Street, Fremantle) is expected to launch its expanded format in July 2026, with the bottle shop continuing as usual in the meantime. 

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