Room for Friends Wine Bar Is Now Open in the Santa Fe Arts District

“Yesterday it was sixteen months to the day that we got the keys,” says Heather David, who is finally ready to celebrate the grand opening of Room for Friends, the wine bar she’s created with partner Michael Vela at 846 Santa Fe Drive.

The two both worked for United Airlines, but “Michael and I love to cook, and we love to share food with friends,” David says. They began hosting small dinner parties at their 1,100-square-foot apartment, and the group quickly grew from eight people to 24. “We realized that this was the highlight of our lives — hospitality. For both of us, it was what we looked forward to,” she adds. “People kept saying, ‘You guys should do this for a living.’ So we decided to do this for a living.”

They signed the lease in November 2021. “The day we got the keys, we…