Municipal Winemakers will close its Santa Barbara Funk Zone tasting room after 15 years in business, the winery announced on Monday, December 29.
In a heartfelt letter from owner and winemaker Dave Potter, he states that while the news might feel heavy, it’s more like they’ve outgrown their starter apartment at 22 Anacapa Street and are focusing on their other location in Santa Barbara and the most recent opening in Ventura.
Two farewell weekends have been scheduled in January with the final goodbye taking place on Sunday, January 25, 2026.
Municipal Winemakers, or “Muni” to fans and locals, first opened a few doors down from 22 Anacapa Street in 2009. My first visit to this location felt like a secret hideaway, tucked in the back of a WWII barrack between other businesses, you had to know exactly where you were going to get there. But once you made it, the charm of this small tasting room felt familiar and cozy.
It was usually Dave behind the small bar, modestly excited to share samples of his creations. Admittedly, I knew very little about wine at this point. Before Muni, most of my wine tastings included sips of my grandmother’s white zinfandel that she kept in the freezer and only drank on Easter and Christmas.
Muni helped expand my wine palate and not long after I became a member and purchased a “Club Awesome” t-shirt. In 2011, their wines gained local notoriety and they outgrew their hidden space and moved into the old Divers Den building at its current location.
“It’s where half of Santa Barbara learned to swim in the massive pool that’s still in back. We raided every thrift store within an hour’s drive to furnish the space, collected all of the UCSB discarded file cabinets, grabbed the old ‘Cokes Fridge’ out of my parent’s garage, and confidently ignored the fact that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. We just knew we wanted to make serious wine feel less precious and more like a good hang,” Dave wrote in his letter.
Mission accomplished. Muni became the go-to place for locals and visitors alike to enjoy quality wine in a comfortable setting. I spent many birthdays, holidays, celebrations, and casual weekend gatherings on the Divers Den patio throughout the years.
In his letter, Dave says for the past 15 years he’s watched the Funk Zone’s “sketchy industrial neighborhood” transform into something vibrant and alive. Anyone who has lived here for a decade or more remembers the sharp evolution of the Funk Zone into the foodie Instagram hub it’s now become.
“We got to be part of making the Funk Zone grow,” Dave writes. “Here’s what I’ve learned over the past couple years: neighborhoods (like people) change, and that’s okay. The Funk Zone isn’t the same as it was in 2009, and neither are we. The raw, creative, neighborhoody local vibe that made Muni feel right back then has found a new home. Actually, two of them.”
Dave launched Potek Winery in 2015 at 406 E. Haley Street in “The Mill” that also houses Third Window Brewing and Caje Coffee. Named after his great-grandfather, Potek has been serving single-vineyard bottlings of Grenache, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Chardonnay, and more. Starting in February, a weekend Muni pop-up bar will take place at Potek.
In February of this year, Muni Ventura opened at 339 N. Ventura Avenue in a burgeoning area of Ventura known as “The Avenue.” It features a charcuterie station and plenty of space to host food trucks and large events. This space also serves up Dave’s bio-dynamically or organically farmed grapes under his “Nowadays Wines” label as well as his 0% alcohol “January” wines.
“[Muni Ventura] reminds me so much of what I loved about the early Funk Zone—independent, unpretentious, full of possibility. It’s where Muni feels like itself again. The vibe is immaculate,” Dave said.
A “Grand Closing” event will take place from January 16-18 and January 23-25. The events will include throwback flights, food pop-ups, music, library wines, and a Memory Wall to leave notes and photos. Last call will be on Sunday, January 25 while the team preps to celebrate the one-year anniversary for Muni Ventura on Valentine’s weekend.
While I’m sad to say goodbye to Muni in the Funk Zone, I raise a glass of Bright Red to all the memories at the Divers Den and celebrate the future of Muni in Ventura and Potek.
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Dave is such a great guy! Sad to see them go from the funk zone, but happy for Muni’s success.
That once “sketchy industrial neighborhood” provided much-needed space for many many local craftsmen and artisans. Some of those locals lost their businesses because relocation was impossible. All of the wine-tasting and wine-sellling businesses are now going to see a severe downturn in their ability to stay afloat, with so many studies advocating that people stop drinking alcohol. The myth of “one glass of wine” has been disproven. NO amount of alcohol consumption is healthy. According to who.int (World Health Organization Europe): “Alcohol is a toxic, psychoactive, and dependence-producing substance and has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago – this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco. Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, including the most common cancer types, such as bowel cancer and female breast cancer. Ethanol (alcohol) causes cancer through biological mechanisms as the compound breaks down in the body, which means that any beverage containing alcohol, regardless of its price and quality, poses a risk of developing cancer.”
Too bad we couldn’t save those 1,000s of oak trees up in the Santa Ynez Valley.
It’s true that younger generations are not drinking wine like previous generations, but wine will continue to exist as it has for centuries.
Muni is a great local business, looking forward to seeing them expand into Ventura and continue with their other SB location. Dave is right, the Funk Zone has drastically changed from 10 years ago. It’s sad to see it become a tourist trap for bachelorette parties and the upcoming hotel developments in that area will only make it worse. I miss the old Funk Zone.