At 25, Kelsie Gaffey left the security of a nine to five to build the kind of place she had spent years imagining. Eighteen months later, Gracie’s Wine Room has become more than a neighbourhood wine bar. It is a community built around good wine, long conversations and the simple luxury of having nowhere else to be in the evening.
On any given evening, the South Yarra wine room might be filled with groups of women comparing their latest purchases, playing cards over a bottle of wine or laughing at something nobody outside the table would understand.
For Gaffey, these seemingly ordinary moments are some of the most meaningful.
“Honestly, I have this moment about once a month,” she says. “The venue is usually chockablock with young women everywhere with a wine in hand.”
“So often I deliver a drink to a table where they’re playing some sort of card game with each other, or showing each other their latest shopping hauls, or just having the biggest laugh over something that only they would find funny.” It is in those moments that she catches herself looking around the room and thinking, “this is exactly what I dreamed of building”.
It’s never just been about opening a wine bar. From the beginning, Gaffey imagined creating somewhere that people associated with their favourite evenings, the kind of place where birthdays are celebrated, first dates unfold, break-ups are debriefed over a shared bottle and an ordinary Wednesday somehow becomes your favourite part of your week.
The dream itself had been following Gaffey long before Gracie’s had a name or an address.
At 16, she started an at-home spray tanning business for friends before their formals and parties. At 18 came an attempt at a clothing label, which she now jokingly describes as “SO embarrassing to look back on.” Then, at 20, she moved to Melbourne, where the idea of creating a venue of her own became increasingly difficult to ignore.
“I couldn’t stop obsessing over the idea of opening a cafe, a restaurant or a bar,” she says.
Meeting her partner, Taylor, helped turn that persistent idea into something that felt possible. But it was a tragedy in 2024 that shifted their perspective entirely. After someone close to their age died in an accident near Gaffey’s workplace, the pair began seriously considering what they wanted from their own lives.
“It really made both myself and Taylor reflect on our lives and what we wanted to achieve,” she says “It was in that moment that we both agreed that the worst possible outcome, failure, really couldn’t be that bad at the ripe age of 24.”
So, they went for it.
What followed was far from the polished founder story social media can make entrepreneurship appear to be. With a limited budget, much of Gracie’s fit-out was completed themselves.
“We knew that we wanted to do as much of the fit-out ourselves to ensure that we had touched every part of the building,” she says. “We didn’t get everything right, and we certainly ran out of money and had to adjust to some quick fixes.”
Eighteen months later, those imperfections have become part of Gracie’s character. The space has continued to evolve as money has been reinvested and details refined, but Gaffey’s vision has remained remarkably clear. Interior design, she admits, was never where her confidence lay. She may not have known exactly what every finish should look like, but she knew precisely how she wanted the room to feel.
After a long day, Gaffey wants walking through the doors of Gracie’s to feel like “a sigh of relief”. A place where whatever happened before 5pm can temporarily become somebody else’s problem. That feeling has become particularly important to the women who make up much of Gracie’s community.
“I do believe the way I show up online helps translate into the customers that we see in-venue,” she says. “I was really considered in always addressing women directly online and hoped that it would translate to building a venue where women felt safe and empowered to come.”
By sharing the realities of building Gracie’s online, Gaffey allowed people to become invested in the venue before they ever sat down for a glass of wine there. One comment in particular has stayed with her. After visiting, a friend’s father told her she should be proud to have created somewhere so many women felt “safe and seen.” For a venue built with that exact feeling in mind, there are probably few compliments that could mean more.
“Hospitality is truly nothing without community,” Gaffey says. “Without it, it would be incredibly hard to build a sustainable business in this environment.”
That community extends beyond the people sitting at the tables. Behind the scenes, Gaffey credits an ecosystem of industry mentors, accountants, lawyers, tradies, neighbours, friends and, of course, Taylor with helping her navigate the realities of becoming a founder. “All of these people make up part of the Gracie’s community which is so vital to your sanity and success as a founder.”
But perhaps the clearest reflection of Gaffey’s vision is what she hopes people remember when they leave.
“If a customer can look back on a moment in time, where they laughed their faces off, made some iconic memories with their friends, and it just happened to be at Gracie’s, that is my genuine hope,” she says.
“We are in the industry of wanting to complement people’s lives and provide a warm and inviting space for them to enjoy.” For many of us, the hours after work are where life actually happens. Gracie’s wasn’t built to simply serve wine, it was built to make space for those after hours moments.
And Gaffey’s ambitions are already stretching beyond the wine room. Earlier this year, she launched Gracie’s Space, a creative studio designed to bring young female entrepreneurs together to work and collaborate, while also operating as a content studio for brand bookings. It has become a passion project and a major focus over the past six months.
As for whether another hospitality venture could follow?
“There’s usually always something up my sleeve,” she says.
For now, though, Gracie’s itself is still only at the beginning.
“Gracie’s is so young, and just like fine wine, I know that it will only get better with age,” Gaffey says. “Maybe you will just have to keep your eyes peeled for what 2027 has in store for us.”
At 25, Gaffey has already turned an idea she couldn’t stop thinking about into something tangible, creating a room full of people, glasses on tables, conversations running late and women who feel entirely at home.
Life’s favourite memories begin after hours. And if her track record is anything to go by, Gracie’s may only be the beginning.
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