Score Cheap Vino: AYC, City Sip, The Park

Some days, $2 PBR just won’t cut it, no matter how tight your budget. Same goes for two buck chuck. Good news: you don’t have to slum it to drink on the cheap.

Echo Park has a handful of spots that offer some serious wine bargains—and we’re not talking about the stuff that comes in a box, either (yeah, we know, not all box wine is bad these days…).

Here are three of our favorite places to sip vino when we’re craving champagne tastes on a beer budget.

You probably know about AYC’s famous $5 menu items during happy hour (which includes the entire menu), but equally impressive are the $18 bottles of wine. From Tuesday through Saturday, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., around three reds and three whites are under twenty bucks a bottle.

Wednesdays are especially hard to beat at AYC, when $5 menu items and $18 wine goes all night. Grilled quail and a bottle of red for under $25? Champagne tastes, indeed.

“Wine for the People” means glasses of wine for $4 to $6 during City Sip’s happy hour, Tuesdays through Fridays from 5:30 to 7 p.m. You can also nibble on $5 happy hour food like cheese, salami or caprese sliders. And good news for beer-drinking dudes (or dudettes): craft beers on draft are just four bucks during happy hour.

City Sip’s real steal comes on Sunday nights, when all open bottles are half off by the glass from 9 to 11 p.m. Go ahead and splurge on that $16 glass of pinot—it’ll only set you back eight bucks. Get there close to nine for the best selection.

The Park
Something’s always on special at The Park, whether it’s $15 prix fixe dinner on Tuesday, $5 burger night on Wednesday or $5 sandwiches for lunch on any old weekday. But Thursday night is reserved for half-off bottles of wine—and that means the entire menu.

Already reasonable at $20 to $35 per bottle, the half-off deals--$10 to $17.50—are akin to Trader Joe’s prices. Only you don’t have to drink it in your living room with cold leftover pizza. There are around 15 bottles to choose from, so whether you’re in the mood for an organic red from Italy or a little something sparkly from Spain, they’ve got you covered.